


Fireflies and Auto Theft

by XFilesinAMajor



Series: GLOW [1]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2021-02-01 03:27:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 76,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21356392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XFilesinAMajor/pseuds/XFilesinAMajor
Summary: June 2013. Teagan and her teenage sons have never heard of Weirdmageddon, the Pines family, or even the Mystery Shack. There was just a good rate on a vacation cabin in a little town out west called Gravity Falls, and they went for it. It never even crossed their minds that there was more to the place than meets the eye. Or that they might wind up spending a few weeks next door to a very interesting family.
Relationships: Stan Pines & Original Character(s)
Series: GLOW [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1574239
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	1. Day Three of Vacation

“Oh my God, this is ridiculous.” I looked at the display of a taxidermized mouse with a fish’s head and laughed. “Who buys into this crap?”

“_Crap?_” demanded an old guy standing near me. “I’ll have you know that I caught this creature myself! And he’s way more dangerous than he looks. They’re so rare, no one even has a name for them anymore, and I had to use, um, laser optics to subdue him!”

“Laser optics?” I raised an eyebrow, but the side of my mouth quirked up along with it. This whole tourist trap _was _ridiculous, but it was at least entertaining.

His eyes darted side-to-side at my question, as for a millisecond I could see him debating whether laser optics had been the right choice to go with. But he stood by it, straightening his back and cocking his jaw ever so slightly. “Yeah!”

I grinned; the story was obviously false, and he clearly _knew _it was false, and probably knew I knew. But he had so much conviction it was hard not to be amused. “Well then!” I said playfully. “I didn’t realize I was talking to an authority!”

“You can laugh,” he told me, crossing his arms defiantly over his broad chest, “but I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe, lady.”

“I live with two teenage boys,” I informed him very seriously. “I’ve seen a lot.”

“Ha,” the old guy scoffed. “Kids are easy compared to giant squids and zombie penguins!”

I blinked. Most of the time when I made a joke about teenagers, anyone over forty just ate it up. But this man was clearly not one of the friendly grandparents I encountered in my daily life, and I should have seen that right away. That was on me.

My brain caught up, processing what he actually _had _said. “Zombie penguins?”

He nodded vigorously. “They come when it’s too dark to see anything. You only know they’re there by the smell of fish breath and then slap of their flippers on the ice.”

I stared for a split second, then burst out laughing. After a brief moment’s pause, he joined me. “That’s fantastic,” I told him, still snorting with laughter. “You should work here!”

He puffed out his chest. “I did! I’m the founder of the Mystery Shack!”

I arranged my face into a _give me a break_ expression. “Really.”

“You don’t believe me? Seriously?” He glanced around, grabbed me by the elbow, and pulled me toward the register with surprising strength. “Jesús,” he said to the man behind the counter (or was it _hey, Seuss?_) in a tone of authority. “Tell this lady who I am!”

Without missing a beat, the clerk—the same man in the goofy fez and eyepatch who had led our tour earlier—looked me dead in the eye. “He’s Stan Pines, town hero and founder of the Mystery Shack!”

“And I caught that dangerous fish-mouse thing, right?”

The clerk looked more uncertain on this point, but nonetheless said “Uh…sure.”

The old man—Stan, it seemed—turned back to me and spread his arms. “Satisfied?”

“Hey Stan,” the clerk cut in before I had a chance to think of an answer, “what time did you say the twins are getting here?”

“Ugh, two o’clock, I already said.” Stan rolled his eyes.

“Right, I know, but…” The poor clerk was still constructing his response when the oldest of my teenage sons returned to my side.

“Mom, can I buy this?”

I didn’t even look at what he was holding. “You can buy whatever you want. It’s your money!”

He shifted awkwardly. “Well…see….I was saving up for a new guitar, so I was hoping _you _could…”

I sighed. “What is it?” He reluctantly showed me a bumper sticker. I reused the same _give me a break_ expression I’d just brought out for the old guy. “You don’t even have a car!”

“_Yet_,” he reminded me forcefully. I rolled my eyes. I know teenagers are the ones with the reputation for rolling their eyes at everything you say, but honestly it goes both ways. They do a lot of stuff that merits eye-rolling. “Anyway, I was going to put it on my guitar case?”

How did he make everything a question? He _had _been decorating his hard case with bumper stickers from various places we’d visited. I sighed again. “Okay. Tell your brother he can also get one thing, on me.” He grinned and hurried back off to a different part of the gift shop. “_One _thing!” I called after him.

“That your kid?”

I turned my attention back to the clerk and the founder, mildly surprised either of them was still interested in talking to me. Also, wasn’t it kind of…_obvious _that was my son? Especially since I’d already mentioned having a couple? “Yeah,” I answered, hopefully not sounding too wary.

“He could use a haircut,” the old guy told me in that characteristically tactless way the older generation tends to have.

“I know,” I agreed with a shrug. “But it’s his hair. As long as he bathes regularly, I try not to interfere.” The implication that went with that was _and if it’s not _my _place to interfere, it’s sure not yours._

He did not take a hint. “How old is he?”

“Fifteen. His brother’s twelve.”

“That’s, uh, that’s cool. My niece and nephew, they just turned thirteen.”

His final comment saved us from the inherent awkwardness of conversation with a stranger. “Oh, so you know all about it! Are they close? I mean, local?” In other words, did he actually see them often? Could he _really _relate?

“No, but they were here all last summer.”

“And they’re coming again this year,” chipped in the clerk, excited. “On a bus in about ten minutes!”

Stan waved a hand in a gesture that should have felt dismissive, but carried a little too much energy. “Twenty. That bus is never on time.”

“Oh, yeah, right.” The clerk’s eyes fell back on me. “Hey, maybe they’ll want to hang out with your kids! Or are you just passing through?”

Stan put a hand over his face. “Oh my God, Seuss! Is this how you talk to all the customers?”

Seuss looked perplexed. “Sure, dude. I like being friendly.”

That was actually quite sweet. I smiled at him. “We’re tourists, I guess. But we’re renting a place here for a few weeks, so you might see us around.”

“Here?” Stan, still following the conversation, looked taken aback. “Why?”

I shrugged, but added an embarrassed grin to the gesture. “It’s something we’ve been doing for a few years now. Go spend a few weeks somewhere new. I was poking around vacation rentals in Oregon, and Gravity Falls had some really cheap options.”

“You didn’t want, like, Portland, or something?”

I was starting to feel concerned here. “No, I prefer small towns. Is something…_wrong_…with Gravity Falls?”

There was a very awkward beat. Then Stan threw back his head and laughed loudly. “Ha, no, of course not! Why would there be!”

“Oh. Good.” I smiled uncertainly, and went off to locate my boys. Nicky was studying a row of animal-themed T-shirts intently, while Dave flipped through a book. “What’d you find?”

Dave showed me the cover of the book he was examining. “It’s a funny book of all these weird creatures that supposedly live around here.”

I looked over his shoulder (a feat that had sadly become more difficult in the past two years). The page showed a cartoon of something called a _multibear_. I laughed. “Anything in there on zombie penguins?”

“I don’t know, Mom, I’ve been looking at it for two minutes.”

His tone made me grind my teeth. I didn’t care _what _Old Man Stan said, I’d take zombie penguins and—what was it?—giant squid over teenagers any day. I turned my attention to Nicky instead. “You want one of those shirts?”

Dave looked up from the book immediately. “That’s not fair! Those shirts are like forty dollars! My bumper sticker only cost twelve!”

“Forty? Seriously?” I looked at the tag to confirm this. Yikes. And twelve dollars for a bumper sticker? Where did they get off? Tourist traps! “Okay, you’re right. Is there something else you’d like, sweetpea?”

“Moooom, don’t call me that in public!” I closed my eyes and prayed for sanity. “And anyway,” Nicky went on, more sullenly, “I really want the shirt. It’s the _only _thing I want. _Please_? You said I could have one thing!”

“We’ve been in town two days!” I exclaimed, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Do you still want to have money for groceries at the end of the month?”

“But we’re on vacation,” Dave protested piteously.

_Yes, but at this rate I’m going to need to buy a lot of liquor to _survive_ this vacation, and that ain’t cheap_, I didn’t say. Instead, I smiled tightly. “Okay, how about I sell you guys to the shop here to pay for all the crap you apparently need?”

“_Mom!_” they protested in unison.

“That’s child labor!” said Nicky.

“That’s not even funny,” said Dave.

“Your _mom’s_ not funny,” I retorted, knowing full well that was a burn on myself. It felt good anyway.

Nicky made big, sad eyes at me, the sort that had worked a lot better when he was smaller. “Pretty please?”

I narrowed my eyes, sighed, and gave in. “Fine. The shirt and the bumper sticker. Dave, I will get you something later that makes up for yours being cheaper. Okay?”

At least Nicky still had the sweet, sunny smile of a pre-teen. Dave hid his smile, along with his acne, under a screen of blonde curls. As we were paying, I almost gave my cell number to Seuss; he seemed to know the teenagers he’d been talking about with Stan, and finding someone their own age for the boys to hang out with really wasn’t such a terrible idea. But I didn’t know anything about these people, and even though he seemed friendly I chickened out.

On our way to the car, I noticed a Greyhound bus pulling up along the main road. Old Man Stan was waiting by the stop—we were close enough that I could recognize the white shirt, glasses, and gray hair. I had just enough passing curiosity to pause and watch, since my kids already had their Gameboy and phone back out, respectively. The doors of the bus opened, and a pair of people jumped down. It was hard to tell much about them from this distance, just two figures with backpacks (and was that a _pig_?), one wearing what looked like a brown trapper hat, the other with long brown hair. What I _could_ tell right away was that they were delighted to see their uncle. The girl set down the pig to fling her arms around him immediately, and the boy didn’t hold back much longer. I watched as a stranger, smiling simply because someone else’s love and happiness at reuniting was so plainly displayed.

And despite spending nearly a hundred dollars, I drove away from the Mystery Shack with a smile on my face.

* * *

The house we were renting was more of a cabin, really. In addition to the main living area and kitchen, it had two bedrooms, one bathroom, and a lot of wood paneling. Big enough for us to get a feel for living in the woods without going broke or killing each other, but only because we knew it wasn’t permanent. Back home, Dave and Nicky would _never_ agree to sharing a room. But for three weeks? They’d tolerate it.

There were four other cabins within walking distance, all nearly identical to ours. My impression was that someone had designed them for people exactly like us, passing through for just a season or so. That didn’t diminish the natural beauty of the area one bit. But so far, despite occasionally seeing a cool vintage car parked by one of the neighboring cabins, we hadn’t encountered any neighbors.

So when I heard a vehicle rumbling down the dirt road later that evening as I prepped spaghetti sauce, I dropped what I was doing to go take a peek out the window. It was that same ancient red sedan that I’d seen parked next door to us on occasion, so I kept watching to see who our neighbors were.

I was not at all expecting to see a girl with long brown hair lift a pig out of the backseat as a boy in a trapper hat climbed out the other side. By the time I’d processed that, I wasn’t too surprised to see an old man in glasses and a white t-shirt get out of the driver’s seat. Clearly, it was fate. The boys were going to have friends this vacation. Excellent.

I stayed inside for the moment, returning to my dinner prep. Then it occurred to me to wonder whether a guy who talked about hunting mouse-fish with laser-optics was likely to be a very good cook. If the boy in the trapper hat was anything like _my _boys, he’d be starving. And I was going to have plenty of food.

“Dave! Nicky!” I shouted after a minute’s consideration. When in doubt, send the kids to do the job.

The guitar music coming from the second bedroom stopped. “What?”

“Come here, I have a job for you guys.”

There were sounds of movement. Dave appeared in the kitchen. “What is it?”

“Where’s Nicky?”

He shrugged skinny shoulders. “He has headphones on.”

And of course it would never have occurred to him to tap his brother on the shoulder. Right. “I just saw people next door. Kids your age. I thought you might want to go say hi. You could invite them to dinner, if they seem cool.”

He only hesitated for a few seconds. “I guess I can go say hi.”

“Thanks.” I rewarded him with a relieved grin. He was smart enough to have realized, like me, that he and his brother irritated each other much less when there were other people around. And he had always been a fairly social creature, even with hormones and moodiness in the mix.

He went out the front door. Nicky came out of the bedroom to turn on the TV and flip through its channels. I continued cooking. After watching what sounded like an old-school horror movie, he asked where Dave was. I told him. He went out the door, too.

Neither of them returned. The TV continued playing hokey roars and screams. I sliced a French loaf to make garlic bread, and tossed up some lettuce and cucumber for salad. The whole cabin was starting to smell like tomato and garlic. My stomach rumbled in anticipation. I glanced at the clock. Half an hour had passed since Dave went out on his mission. I turned the heat down on the stove, grabbed the mystery novel I was partway through, and went to read it on the small front deck.

From there, I could hear the voices of my sons, mixed with several unfamiliar ones. It sounded like they were inside the neighbor’s cabin, but someone had left the windows open. I couldn’t quite catch what they were talking about, so I read a few pages. Nothing happened. I read a few more pages. Nothing continued to happen. I went inside and stirred the sauce. Read another ten pages, stirred the sauce again. Just more of the _voices_. How much talking could they possibly do?

I knew the answer to that one, because I’d been Dave’s mother for fifteen years. A lot, that was the answer—a _lot_. If their mission was getting to know the neighbors, they were obviously succeeding spectacularly. If their mission was inviting the neighbors to dinner, they were total failures. I stuck the bookmark back in my book, stretched, and got to my feet. If you want something done right…

I knocked on their front door. To my total lack of surprise, it was answered (after a long wait) by Mr. Zombie Penguins himself. We stood on opposite sides of the doorway, staring awkwardly at each other. “Oh.” He said when the silence got too heavy. “It’s you. Thought that kid looked familiar.”

I smiled, started to offer a handshake, and instead crammed my hands into the back pockets of my jeans. “Yes, from this afternoon! Turns out we’re neighbors. I…uh. I thought these were all vacation homes?”

“Huh? Yeah, I guess so.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Hadn’t really thought about it, to be honest.”

My brow furrowed in confusion. “But I thought you were local? I mean, this afternoon, it sounded like…” I fumbled. “You said you founded the Mystery Shack.”

“Oh, right!” He laughed, and his posture relaxed as the metaphorical lightbulb went on over his head. “I did. I used to live there, too. But I retired last fall, and we gave the place to Seuss.”

I held up a finger, pausing him. “Excuse me, I have to ask. The tour guide, Mr. Mystery—his name is Seuss? Like Dr Seuss?”

He laughed again. “No, like Jesús! Jeez lady, you need to spend less time around kids’ books!” Before I had a chance to take offense, he stepped back and motioned me through the doorway. “Here, come on in. The kids are still talking. You want a drink?”

About to say no, I realized I could do with someone outside the family to talk to here, too. “Sure. What do you have?”

He blinked at me. “You…you actually want a drink?”

“Yesssssss?” I asked, eyeing him oddly and turning my answer into more of a question. “Depending what you have.”

“Oh! Uh…beer? Soda?”

I made a face. “Sorry. More of a hard liquor girl, myself. How about a glass of water?”

“Sure!” Seeming relieved that I only wanted water, he motioned me into a living room that almost perfectly mimicked the one in our cabin. The only thing different was the style of the sofa. Dave was sitting on this one, chatting with Stan’s niece and her pig. Well, chatting with the niece, anyway. The pig just sort of sat there, but it was cute. Nicky was sitting on the floor, listening avidly to whatever the nephew was saying about the woods. Since no one seemed to notice me, I followed Stan into his kitchen.

He was reaching into the cupboard, and didn’t seem surprised that I’d followed him. “It’s a good thing your kids didn’t turn up sooner,” he said, setting a tall glass on the countertop and turning on the sink. “At least this way I had ten minutes before mine started ignoring me.” He sounded slightly bitter, but it wasn’t directed at me.

“I’m sorry,” I sighed, accepting the glass he filled for me. “I didn’t mean to interrupt the family reunion. I was just excited to see some potential friends for my kids. I sent Dave over to invite you all to dinner.”

“Dinner?” He opened a can of soda for himself. “You’re inviting people you don’t even know to _dinner_? How do you know we’re not a bunch of whack-jobs?”

“Because your niece had a _pig _buckled into the back seat next to her. Anyone who takes that much care of an animal isn’t going to turn out to be a chainsaw murderer.”

“Heh.” He grinned, and lifted his can in a mock toast. “To a good judge of character.”

I inclined my head. “To surviving teenagers.” I took a long sip of my water, then pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and swung a leg over it, leaning comfortably into the back. “I’m Teagan, by the way.”

“I’m Stan,” he grunted, dropping into the seat opposite me. “Anyway, as I was saying, my brother and I have been off boating most of the year, so I handed over the Mystery Shack to Soos. He’s done a pretty good job with it, I guess. Hasn’t run the place into the ground yet. But I really don’t want to spend the summer camping in the living room with him and his grandma and girlfriend, you know? So we rented this place for the summer.”

I was actually rather impressed by this. “That’s really nice, that you didn’t want to impose! This seems like a good compromise, if you’re only here for a few months.” I paused, thinking. “What happens when the summer’s over?”

Stan flapped a hand. “Ford’ll be back by then. He’s doing something top secret for the government right now—you know, boring nerd crap. But when he’s done we’ll be back in the boat. Maybe hitting the Caribbean this time.”

“That sounds _wonderful_,” I said wholeheartedly. “I’ve never been there.”

“Me neither. Which means I’m legally allowed to visit it!”

I laughed lightly. “That’s not a weird thing to say at _all_.”

“Ha ha not at all,” he agreed with too much gusto before changing the subject. “So what’s your deal with vacations? You said you—”

“Mom!” Nicky charged in. “Aren’t Dipper and Mabel invited for dinner?” He sounded almost accusatory, as if someone had dared to doubt him.

The other three followed him into the kitchen. _Dipper and Mabel_, I repeated mentally, studying them up close for the first time. They both had mops of brown hair, though the boy pushed his down with the trapper hat and the girl had hers pulled back with a glittery scrunchie. They had the sort of tans that only people who live in sunny climates seem to get, and their faces still had some of that childish roundness. _What sort of name is Dipper?_

Aloud, I confirmed that they were _all _invited for dinner, if that was alright with Stan.

Yeah, sure, it was alright. He shrugged as Nicky led the stampede of teenagers back out the door. “It’s only a matter of time before they’re off with their old friends anyway. Might as well make the most of it. Hey, you’re a good cook, right?”


	2. Day Four of Vacation

It was more than just Dipper and Mabel. The next day, the twins came to collect my boys in a van already filled with teenagers. I’d wanted them to get to know the town and make some friends—that was sort of the point—but letting them drive off with a gang I didn’t know made me a little nervous. I stopped in to give Stan some leftover pie from the night before, in the hopes that he could calm my nerves. He knew at least two of the other kids by name, and seemed untroubled by them in general. “Dipper hung out with them all last summer,” he assured me between mouthfuls of pie. “Hey, I think it’s even better cold! What do you put in this? Is it illegal? Cause you could _sell_ it!”

Since I’d always prided myself on my baking, I preened a little at the compliment. We sat around talking about the kids for a while, a subject we hadn’t been able to really discuss during dinner the night before. I must have been there fifteen minutes before he thought to offer me coffee or anything, but he was actually fairly entertaining company. Once you got past the stained T-shirt and five o’clock shadow, he had a sort of brazen charm to him. He couldn’t be any older than my dad, but he somehow possessed that I’m-old-and-don’t-give-a-shit-what-you-think mindset I normally only saw in much older (or much younger) people. Maybe it was because he’d never been married?

Though come to think of it, how did I know he _hadn’t_? There were no kids of his own and no ring in evidence, but I didn’t feel safe making any assumptions with this guy. He was very good at making jokes about his family and telling tall tales about past escapades, but he was far less good at giving honest answers to questions about himself. Ah well. He could be a mystery, if that’s what he wanted. He still made me laugh, and he made a pretty good cup of coffee.

I sent a group text to both my kids, questioning when I could expect them back. I’d spent over an hour chatting with Stan, but that’s about as long as I was capable of sitting still for. Maybe—no, scratch that, certainly—I had time for a walk in the woods before my family returned to me.

“Do Dipper and Mabel normally make it back for lunch?” I asked, standing to crack my neck and stretch my back. Too much sitting!

“Today?” He shrugged broad shoulders. “Probably not. They’ll be too busy catching up with their friends.”

Hm. I nodded my gratitude for the information and sent a follow-up text to the boys, letting them know I could come get them if their new friends were too busy to drive them back. Okay, enough being rude. I pulled my line of vision back from my phone up to Stan. “What are you doing with your afternoon, then?”

“I, uh…” He’d been starting to stand up, but the weight of that question sat him back down. “I dunno. Before last summer I had this, uh, project I was working on. To help Ford. And I was running the Mystery Shack. And then we were busy…you know, saving the world and stuff.” I laughed at his evasion. “Since then I’ve been on the Stan O’ War with Ford.”

“Fighting the giant squid and zombie penguins?” I asked, biting the inside of my cheek to stop a smirk.

He narrowed his eyes. “Don’t you laugh! They were _terrifying_. And don’t even get me started on the hairless yeti.”

I frowned in confusion, momentarily distracted by this image. “Wouldn’t they get awfully cold, with no hair?”

“Heh. Maybe that’s why they were in such a bad mood!” He chuckled.

I sat back down, leaning across the table as I put on a show of being captivated. Now that I knew he didn’t really believe this stuff, just enjoyed the dog and pony show, it was fun to play along. “However did you escape?”

“Brass knuckles, whadya think?” he said as if it were obvious. “I tried going for the harpoon gun, but it was frozen to the deck. Ford was trying to think a way out, but I knew the only muscle that would help was in my arm. So I gut-punched the one coming for us! It got him just low enough that I clocked him in the head. Yetis have notoriously bad balance, you know. Cause they’re so tall. Anyhow he went down like a bag of rocks, and the one behind tripped over him, and then the engine started. I threw some water on them as we were leaving, and last I knew they were frozen solid to the ground.”

“Wow,” I whispered, impressed. “Have you ever thought about writing your memoirs?”

That reaction caught him off guard. “Me? No way. That’s Ford’s deal, writing stuff down. I’d rather stay in the moment, you know?”

“Sure.” I nodded agreeably. “Well…” Did I do it? He was telegraphing lonely and bored, he was funny and knew the town. But did I really want to adopt a retiree while I was on family vacation? I could just spend the afternoon exploring the woods and catching up on my summer reading. But offering Stan company felt like the nice thing to do.

Fuck it, this was my vacation! If I wasn’t spending it with my kids, I wanted to find out who murdered Dr. Smorkline today. “Thanks for the coffee,” I said, getting back to my feet. “If you don’t have any dinner plans, you’re welcome to join us again.” There, my conscience was assuaged.

“What, you think I can’t cook or something?”

I cocked my head to the side and studied him. “Will you be offended if I say yes?”

He hesitated, then shrugged. “Hey, if you wanna feed extra people for free, knock yourself out.”

I grinned. “How vary gracious of you.”

“Yeah, well, you know. I got a big heart.” He winked at me.

I knew he meant it just to be funny…well, pretty sure….like 60 percent? It was only a small part in the back of my mind that imagined he was trying to flirt with me. But even so, that part of my brain was flattered by the idea. I mean yes, he had twenty years or so on me, and he wasn’t winning any fitness competitions, but he wasn’t_ bad_, either. He had that roguish grin, full head of hair, strong jaw, and warm eyes behind the glasses.

Ugh. I was overthinking this by a _mile_. If he thought I was cute, I was honestly okay with that. I’d hit forty on my last birthday, and could use the ego boost. But I needed a summer fling right now the same way I needed an extra hole in my head. I was only mentally evaluating him like that because, well…fine, because he was male and made me laugh and I hadn’t been laid in a very, very long time.

That did not mean I was allowed to start flirting with every man I met. I was terrible with flirting anyway. And he didn’t strike me as the sort of creepy old man who was going to pursue me and make things weird, so this was a total non-issue.

I smiled politely and headed back to my own cabin.

* * *

I had long walk in the woods, tripping over a root and falling flat only once (the other two times I caught myself on my palms and my knee, respectively). Grace had never been my middle name, or even my last name. But I liked nature, and there was plenty of that to be found. The redwoods were beautiful, and the dappled sunlight that made it through their leaves filled me with a sense of peace and happiness. Once I thought I heard someone else hiking, but when I tried to figure out where they might be, the sound vanished. Feeling vaguely spooked after that, I decided to head back and wound up getting lost. The paths weren’t very well-worn, and Human Compass was another thing that was definitely not my middle name.

By the time I made it back, I was tired. Dave had finally taken the time to text _no we’re fine, c u 4 dinner. _Dammit, he _knew _I hated it when they used letters and numbers in place of words! I’d planned stir fry for dinner, but still had to drive back into town to buy the ingredients. Dammit again! I downed two glasses of water, touched up my anti-perspirant, and grabbed an apple before heading back out the door. There was a small grocery store out near the used car dealership, where it took me about half an hour to hunt down everything I needed. We already had the basics like milk and bread and soda, but I also got stuff to bake cookies and muffins…and, after a moment’s debate, a bottle of rum. I felt like I deserved it, at this point.

By my calculations, I had about half an hour of free time before I needed to start chopping vegetables. I poured out a shot of rum, made it a double, and headed out in front of the cabin with my book and a blanket. I spread it out, stretched out on my stomach, and sipped as I turned pages of the detective story. Personally, I thought the duchess had done it. But she was such an insufferable bitch, it was probably a red herring. Or maybe I just wanted to see her go to jail. I _never _guessed the guilty party correctly.

“Yours still aren’t back yet either, huh?”

I looked up. Stan, of course. “Of course not. But they did say they’d be back for dinner. Any word from yours?”

“I got about six texts from Mabel.” He laughed. “But none that actually say what time they’ll be here.”

I laughed, too, and shook my head. Apparently that was all the invitation he needed to plonk down on the blanket beside me and peer over my shoulder. “Whatcha reading?”

Oh God he _was _lonely. I immediately felt guilty for not inviting him anywhere earlier. Maybe he loved hikes in the woods. Maybe he could have saved me from getting lost. I flipped my book closed so I could show him the cover. “Period British mystery novels are the best mystery novels!”

“You like mysteries?”

I nodded.

“You ever read William Ravendowne?”

He was a reader? I was pleasantly impressed, and screwed up my face in thought. “No, but I know I’ve seen the name.”

“He’s the best,” Stan said enthusiastically. “I don’t know how he does it, but I _never _see the ending coming.”

“You’ll have to loan me one after I finish this,” I said with a smile, holding up my current book. Oh, wait. “Assuming you bring your personal library on vacation, I guess.” I laughed awkwardly. “Maybe I should just hit the local library.”

“Nah, I’ll just let you dig through the boxes of stuff I’ve still got stashed in the back room at the Shack. You watch mystery _shows_, too?” Not usually, but I enjoyed them when I did. I gave a noncommittal shrug. “You ever see Duck-tective? The kids and I watched that one together a lot.”

“No, I can’t say I’ve heard of it!” Wonder how I’d missed that one. “Did you say _duck_-tective?”

Stan nodded agreeably. “Yeah, he’s a detective. And a duck. It’s funny.”

My smile tightened into an amused smirk. “I’ll take your word for it.”

“You might not have to. There’s a new season this summer. The twins might get your kids into it.”

“Then I guess I’ll look forward to it.” I substituted a bookmark for my finger and closed the book properly, sitting up with the remains of my drink. “So how has your day been?”

He groaned in answer. “I got so bored I went out to the Mystery Shack and helped Soos out again. He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s paying me.” He laughed good-naturedly.

I took a small sip, and leaned back on one hand. “Sounds better than my day. I got lost in the woods _and _in a grocery store.”

One gray eyebrow went up. “You got lost in a _grocery store_? What are you, stupid?”

I put on a feminine southern drawl, fanning myself with my empty hand. “Oh, Mister Stan, you do go on!”

He grinned. “Hey, I call ‘em as I see ‘em.”

“Thaaaaanks,” I drawled, sarcastically this time. “I didn’t _literally _get lost in the store. I just don’t know where anything is.”

“Well then why didn’t you say that?”

“I…” I started to answer and realized two things. First, that I didn’t have any satisfactory reason why I _couldn’t _have just said it like that. And second, that I was kind of flirting. _He could be your dad, Teagan, _I scolded myself. “You know, I have no idea.”

We sat in silence for a minute. I took another sip of my drink. “I’m sorry again, if our being here accidently robbed you of time with your family. It sounds like you rented this place just to spend time with them, and you’ve hardly seen them.”

Stan shrugged. “Not your fault. Even if you weren’t here, they’d still be off with Wendy and Candy and Grenda and…whoever those other guys are. It’s just what happens as they get older.” Suddenly, his face lit up. “_But!_ I know at least Mabel’s coming back soon, because she left Waddles here!”

Waddles had joined us for dinner the night before, when Mabel had formally introduced me to him. The pig was sweet, chubby, and perfectly clean. He liked to have his tummy rubbed. She clearly adored her pet. “How on earth did she wind up with a pet pig, anyway?” I asked. “I mean, he’s not even one of those mini potbellied ones, is he?”

This got me a lengthy story about a “Mystery Fair” Stan himself had sponsored last year, as publicity for the Mystery Shack. Mabel had won the pig there, and it had been the bane of his existence the rest of the summer. It had even, to hear him tell it, been captured by dinosaurs and had to be rescued at one point. It had also been forcibly married to a goat, at Mabel’s whim.

Alrighty then.

I checked the time on my phone and realized I needed to get to chopping up vegetables. I invited Stan to follow me inside, but he said he needed to check on the damn pig. I suspected he just wanted to be home when his niece and nephew got there. He tried to act as though he didn’t care, but I wasn’t buying it for a second.

That was fine. It meant I could send a few stern texts to my kids without having to awkwardly pause a conversation. I made it quite clear that they _would _be home for dinner, but that their new friends were invited again. _All of them? _Nicky responded. Crap. Crapcrapcrap. I hurriedly backtracked, clarifying that we only had enough to feed six people tonight. Maybe pizza or tacos could be on the menu tomorrow, if they really felt compelled to bring the whole gang. Anyway, they had forty-five minutes. I wasn’t going to keep the food warm indefinitely.

I put some music on, and got to chopping. Things were going into the large skillet I was using as a wok when my sons charged in. Nicky kicked his shoes off and plopped down at the kitchen table, excitedly telling me all about his day. Behind him, Dave disappeared into the bathroom.

“And then we drove by this convenience store where Dipper said there are _ghosts_, but we didn’t go in because they hate teenagers,” Nicky narrated eagerly. “So we went to the local diner and sat around drinking milkshakes. It was okay, I guess. Dave was being all _teenagery_. He just kept talking about music with the older guys. And Mabel was busy talking with Wendy, she’s like Dipper’s best friend in town, she’s _super _cool. But the chocolate shake was _amazing_. Anyhow the girls were off messing with that old music thing like a giant iphone, you know? And—”

“It’s called a jukebox.”

“Huh?”

It was amazing how far the world had come, really. “Those giant music things. They’re called jukeboxes. They used to be in a lot of places, so you could choose what music you wanted to listen to, and you’d put in a quarter. About the only place you can find them now is at old bars and diners, though. Anyway?”

“Oh, right. So Dipper told me about _all _this stuff they did last summer, and all these crazy animals that live here, and he showed me his _journal_.” The last line was said almost with reverence. Clearly, Dipper was the coolest in Nicky’s eyes.

I smiled. I loved his excitement. This made having him gone all day nearly worth it. “What’s in his journal?”

“The stuff he’s discovered, of course! He goes walking in the woods or around town and makes notes. There’s all this data, and he plays DD&MD too, he said his other grunkle’s usually the DM but since he’s not here yet _he’ll _be doing it and he wants me to be in his campaign!”

I continued smiling and nodding, dumping some snap peas into the pan. Nicky had discovered tabletop gaming about a year ago, and even had his own group that he played with back home. This was wonderful. And…wait. “Did you say _grunkle_?”

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Great. Uncle. Grunkle!”

Huh, I’d been under the impression Stan and his brother were the twin’s garden-variety uncles. _Great-uncle_ sounded far older. That was probably why he avoided using it. Still, _grunkle _sounded like some sort of body part or rude noise. The thought made me snort in laughter. Nicky didn’t notice, already back on the subject of his new hero.

“So you’re not tired of Dipper and Mabel, then?” I asked him, mostly as a joke. “You don’t mind me inviting them to dinner again?”

“Are you kidding? I think it’s _great_! You’re the _best _mom! And Dipper said the spaghetti last night was great. He said Grunkle Stan usually just gets them take-out and eats stuff out of cans. Can we have them over tomorrow too?”

I laughed and shook my head. “We’ll see. They’re gr…” Nope, couldn’t bring myself to say it. “Stan has hardly seen them since they got here, you know. Maybe we should give them a day off.”

A wide-eyed look of horror took over his face. “No! No, Mom, you can’t! Why don’t we, hm. Why don’t you and him come along next time? Dipper said they like to go fishing. We could all go fishing together, right?”

I ruffled his hair—darker and much shorter than his brother’s—affectionately. His intensity was one of my favorite things about him. “We’ll put it under consideration, okay?”

Dave came out of the bathroom and leaned into the counter near me. “That smells great!”

I flashed him a grin. He was such a sweetheart when he wasn’t caught up in teenage angst. “So you had fun?”

He nodded. “Tambry and Wendy are pretty cool. But I like Mabel and her friends better.” A genuine smile peeked out from behind the veil of hair. “They’re fun.”

I was momentarily surprised, since his brother had basically described him acting “too cool” for the younger crowd. Then again, that had probably because today there had been a crowd his age to try and impress. Hanging out with some younger kids who still knew how to goof off _would _be more fun. “That’s great,” I told him with feeling. “Maybe you and the girls can get in on the campaign Dipper and Nicky are planning.”

His smile faded to disgust. “Ugh, no way! We’re going to the mall tomorrow.”

I stepped back from the stove and folded my arms across my chest. “Oh really. Have Mabel and…?” I paused in what was going to be a quick shoot-down, realizing I should know these other girls’ names.

Dave rolled his eyes. “Candy and Grenda?”

“Right,” I seized on the answer at once. “Have Mabel and Candy and Grenda checked with _their _parents about that yet? Because I’m pretty sure you hadn’t checked with yours.”

He rolled his eyes even harder. “Right, lemme just go check with Dad.”

Nicky’s eyes grew round, and I glared daggers at Dave. “You _know _I meant me. You just don’t like me telling you no.”

“Well why _shouldn’t _I go to the mall?” he demanded, voice rising. “It’s my vacation, too!”

“Because I want to spend time with you,” I said softly and levelly, hoping to defuse the situation. “And because I feel kind of bad for Mabel’s uncle.”

“Mom thinks we should all do something together tomorrow.” Nicky piped up, eager to help.

“Oh jeez, so I’m supposed to change my plans because of some old guy?”

My jaw twitched in anger, and my voice dropped half an octave. “It’s called _respect_. It’s called _consideration_. And if you’re going to hanging out with his niece all summer, you can at least use his _name_. Disrespect me all you want, but you’re not going to be _rude_.”

For a second, I thought the situation was going escalate. Dave’s jaw twitched just like mine had, and his eyes flashed dangerously. Then the moment passed, and his shoulders sagged. “I’m sorry,” he said in a voice that suddenly sounded much younger. “You’re right.” A pause. “I just really wanted to go to the mall.”

I pulled him into a hard hug, which he tolerated for about three seconds. “I know. Look. Maybe. Okay? If the rest of them are really approved to go, I won’t stop you. Fair?”

He nodded, eyes bright again.

Just in time. There was a knock at the door. “I’ll get it!” Dave turned and headed that direction.

“No, I’ll get it!” Nicky flew to his feet and dashed for the door, but Dave’s longer legs got him there first. He pulled it open, and there was a pause.

“Hello?” I watched him turn his head from side to side. “No one’s here.”

“I bet it’s the hide-behind!” Nicky said raptly, trying to shoulder him out of the way.

Dave took a step forward, looking further outside the doorway.

“Boo!” said a girl’s voice, and Dave fell back with a strangled cry. Mabel appeared in the doorway, laughing as she set down Waddles. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I just couldn’t resist! Oh my gosh, are you okay?”

“I’m…fine…” Dave clutched his heart dramatically, and fell down. Mabel laughed.

“A hide-behind would _never_ knock on the door,” Dipper said seriously, sliding in the door behind his sister.

“What’s a hide-behind?” I asked, because it seemed like no one was going to volunteer the information.

“A mythical creature that lives in the woods,” Dipper answered at once, at though it was the most normal thing in the world. “But they’re very elusive.”

“You’re a regular paranormal expert, aren’t you?” I asked, turning the heat down on the pot of rice.

A quick glance over my shoulder as I looked for a lid showed me Dipper radiating pride. “Oh, I wouldn’t say expert! That’s my Grunkle Ford. But when he gets here, he’s going to teach me more!”

“And in the meantime, you’re stuck with just me!” Stan made his entrance, too. I shot a quick smile of welcome in his direction.

“Aww, he doesn’t mean _that_,” Mabel protested, wrapping her arms around her uncle in a big hug. “You know we love you!”

“Yeah, yeah…” Stan scratched the back of his neck, looking embarrassed, but he was unmistakably pleased. “Wow, it smells great in here!”

“Mom, how long till dinner?” Dave looked up from rubbing Waddles’ tummy. I sincerely hoped he washed his hands again before eating.

“Probably ten minutes,” I answered promptly. “Stay indoors, please?” There were only so many places indoors that they could run off to, so all of them lounged over various pieces of the living room, listening to the TV and each other while barely looking up from their phones.

“Stan, have a seat,” I suggested before turning to stir the food again.

“Way ahead of you.” Showing the sort of non-restraint I was starting to expect from him, Stan ordered Dipper out of the recliner on the grounds that he was old and needed it more. I laughed silently to myself.

“Here, Dip-dip, you can have my spot,” Mabel said, springing to her feet almost at once. “Teagan, can I help you set the table?”

“Um…sure?” She seemed actually eager, not just polite, and I saw Dave looking on guiltily. I started to tell her where the plates were, but she’d already found them. Dave jumped up to grab the silverware. It was cute how the two of them tried to make the place settings look all fancy. The very basic table settings we had in the cabin weren’t exactly conducive to it, but the whole thing felt nice and homey. If we could strike the right balance here, I certainly wouldn’t mind sharing our vacation time with this family.

Having people compliment my cooking was a nice perk. My own kids had thankfully outgrown their picky phase a few years back, but now they were so used so my dishes they didn’t think anything of it. Not that I was a great chef, but I _did _like cooking for people. Stan squawk ed briefly when he noticed the stir fry contained _tofu_, having caught onto the fact that I’d avoided meat two days in a row. I sighed elaborately. I generally _was _vegetarian, but I could make exceptions in the name of hospitality. “I wasn’t aware I was a restaurant,” I responded, low-key teasing the way I would my kids. “Okay, how about steak and potatoes tomorrow night?”

“Yeah, that’d be great, I—” He stopped himself, and actually had the decency to blush slightly. “You don’t, uh, have to do that. You don’t even have to keep having us over. I _can _feed my own family.”

I flapped a hand dismissively at him. “I’m sure you can, but I have a feeling inviting you guys along is the only way I’m going to get to feed _mine_. And I like cooking.”

“Ooo oo will you teach me?” Mabel cut in eagerly. “Can I help tomorrow?” I shrugged and looked at Dave, and she turned to him. “Can we? Please please puh-lease?”

Her pleading dragged a slow grin out of him. “I thought we were gonna go to the mall?”

“But we’ve got all _summer_ for that,” she groaned. “This might be my only chance to learn how to cook!”

I laughed. “We’re going to be here half the summer, too. But I’d be honored to teach you.”

“And Stan?” She looked sweetly at her uncle. “Can he come too?” She dropped her voice to a stage whisper. “He could use some lessons, too.”

“I, uh…” I shifted awkwardly in my seat, and hurriedly took a bite of carrot. “I don’t know if I want a big audience! I’m not exactly a pro.” Mabel’s face fell at once. I anticipated another _puh-lease_ coming on.

“I promise we’ll do it soon,” I smiled, trying to forestall it. “Why don’t I talk to your…to Stan after dinner, so we can work around each other’s plans?”

“Okayyyyy,” she chirped happily, and shoveled rice and veggies into her mouth.

“Plans?” Stan asked gruffly. “We don’t have any plans!”

I shot him a look, trying to silently say _work with me here, I’m trying to help!_

“Oh.” He coughed, confused but picking up on enough of my expression to go along. “Right. Plans. You know, this tofu isn’t actually terrible.”

“That’s high praise, for him,” Dipper said around a mouthful of food.

Nicky laughed. “So when’s your Grunkle Ford get here? Are we gonna meet him, too?”

“I don’t know…how long are you staying, again?” Dipper asked, and within seconds the kids were running the conversation again. That was fine. I was happy sitting back and just listening to them chatter with each other, hearing the funny jokes they made and trying commit to memory the names that they mentioned. Stan stayed mostly quiet, too, chipping in an indignant comment or a hearty laugh here and there.

After dinner, the kids did all carry their plates and glasses to the kitchen for me. But none of them were begging to help me wash up, I noticed with a wry smile. Even before dinner was over, they had decided to make a campfire in the pit outside the twins’ cabin (what was their last name? If I’d ever heard it, I’d forgotten) and I let them run off to do just that.

I surveyed the dishes, then decided they could wait. I still had company!

Stan had moved back to our recliner when the kids went outside, looking as comfortable as if this were his own house. Despite the sofa now being open, I sat down on the floor instead; it always felt more natural to me.

“So really, what _are _your plans for tomorrow?” I asked, relaxing back into the rug. “I know you said you don’t have any, but this is your chance to actually keep the kids around. If you don’t speak up, they’re just going to make their _own _plans.”

“Eh.” A verbal shrug. “I’ve got them all summer, and I guess I can’t make them work at the Shack since I handed it over to Soos. They might as well have fun.” He coughed. “I _want _them to have fun. I know they’re growing up, dunno how many summers like this I’ll get.”

I made a dissatisfied face as I mulled that over. “I guess you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right!”

“I mean, your kids—er, your niece and nephew—seem really nice. They’re already introducing the boys to their other friends, showing them around…Nicky’s already looking at Dipper like he’s the coolest thing to come along in years. Is that his real name, by the way?”

“What, Dipper?” Stan chuckled. “Nah, he’s got a funny birthmark he likes to cover up with that hat. Looks just like the big dipper, it’s crazy.”

“Yikes.” I winced in sympathy. “He doesn’t mind the nickname, though? What’s his real name?”

“Uh…” Looking up from my view on the floor, I could just see his eyes dart from side to side. “Hey look, a change of subject!” he exclaimed suddenly, pointing out the window.

I automatically looked, then laughed when I realized what he’d actually said. “Oh my God.” I covered my face with my hands, still giggling slightly. “That should never have worked in a million years.”

He grinned broadly. “That’s the trick to just about any con—the delivery. You get the attitude right, it doesn’t really matter _what _you say.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Are you a legit conman?”

In response, he raised both eyebrows innocently. “Of course not!”

I narrowed my eyes thoughtfully. “You said that with a lot of conviction. Which is exactly what a conman would do. I mean—” I widened my eyes, very serious, the picture of innocence. “I hear it’s all about the delivery.”

Stan laughed. “I’m a good salesman, how about we leave it at that?”

I grinned almost despite myself. “Deal.” I paused. “I just lost my train of thought.”

“Sounds like you lose a lot of things.”

“I _do._” I grimaced. “I’m almost scared to go for another walk in those woods without a trail of breadcrumbs or a giant ball of string.”

“That’s probably a good idea.” He nodded very seriously. I couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not. “There’s some weird stuff out there.”

“What, like the…” What was it Nicky and Dipper had been talking about earlier? “The hide-behind?”

“I was thinking more about the gnomes and dinosaurs, but sure.”

I smirked again. “This town really thrives on the supernatural schtick, doesn’t it?”

“Who said it was a schtick?”

“Um, I went to the Mystery Shack yesterday. It’s _fun_, but it’s not _real._”

Stan gave me a long, thoughtful look. “What if I said that’s because the real stuff doesn’t sell?”

“I’d say you were having me on.”

After a minute he shrugged, dropping his head back against the chair. “Suit yourself.”

This was undoubtedly a trick to get me to ask questions, to start believing the con. But I couldn’t see any harm in it, and I wanted to see where he was going with this. “Alright, go on?”

“Whaddya mean? I’m not my brother, I’m not going to try to convince you of anything. You’re just a tourist, stick to the tourist stuff. Just…take that ball of yarn next time.”

I was starting to feel uneasy. “Your brother would try to convince me?”

“Well, maybe. Look, I shouldn’t have said anything. You seem like a nice lady, and if I hadn’t lived through all the weird stuff in this town I wouldn’t believe it either.”

I knew I was probably being gullible. I shifted nervously anyway. “But we’re _safe_ here, right? I mean, you came back. You brought the twins back here.”

Seeing that I was taking him seriously now, his face mirrored my concern. “Well, uh…huh. I mean, yeah, it’s safe and all. Mostly. Listen, if your kids are hanging around Dipper you’ll hear it anyway. I wouldn’t say you need to walk around scared. It’s a pretty nice town, and most people ignore the weird stuff. But the kid’s not crazy, either. Don’t go thinking that. Okay?”

He looked very serious. I hoped this _was _some sort of tall tale, some sort of game, and he’d laugh and say “gotcha!” in a second. He didn’t. I swallowed hard, and nodded.

“Ah, crap,” Stan muttered, rubbing his face with his hand. “This is what I get for hanging out with tourists. You’re gonna be fine, okay, Teagan? Trust me.” This time he summoned the wide con-artist grin, and I couldn’t help feeling a little reassured. “Tell you what, if it’ll make you feel better I can take you around town, show you how safe it really is.”

I managed a nervous smile. “Let me guess, I get to pay for all the attractions?”

Stan looked affronted. “Well you can hardly expect the _guide_ to pay. Besides, I’m offering so you’ll feel safer. That makes me a bodyguard _and_ a guide, right? Two for the price of one!”

I gave him a suspicious glance, pretty sure I’d just gotten played after all—but deep down, I felt relieved. I could let the kids run off with their new friends without feeling guilty about pulling Dipper and Mabel away from their uncle, I didn’t need to worry about getting lost again, I didn’t have to fear any supernatural crap that may or may not even exist, and I’d have some adult company while exploring the town.

“Are you going to keep joining us for dinner, too?” I inquired, starting to smile for real again.

“Thought you said that was the only way you’d get to see your kids.” He spread his hands in front of him, displaying his total innocence. “I’m not gonna interfere with that!”

I laughed, and got back to my feet. “So steak tomorrow?” I asked lightly as I walked to the door. I needed to peek out at the kids, just make sure they hadn’t been…eaten by ghosts, or anything.

“Yeah, sure, I mean.” He scratched the back of his head, looking faintly embarrassed. “If you want.”

I nodded, silently engrossed in watching the four dark shapes moving around the small bonfire. I could hear laughter, and when I took a step closer I could just see the marshmallows flying. I leaned into the doorway and hugged myself happily. That was Dave, giggling and helping Mabel pelt Dipper with them. “Oh, this is so good for him,” I murmured to myself.

Stan came out the other side of the door, squinting through his square glasses at the antics. “Which one?” he asked, speaking low like I had.

“Dave.” I smiled wistfully. “It’s so nice to see him having fun like this with Mabel, goofing off and listening to his inner child instead of his inner mopey teen.”

Stan hesitated. “I don’t need to worry about him, do I? Around her?”

I stared blankly at him for a minute. Why would he worry? _Oh_! I laughed. “Aww, you’re being protective! That’s so sweet.” He avoided my gaze. “No, you definitely don’t need to worry.”

“You sure? Mabel can be pretty…” Stan’s face contorted in unease. “Boy crazy.”

I considered that. “Yeah, but she seems like she’d be pretty direct. If she started crushing on Dave, he’d know it, right?”

At that, he chuckled. “Definitely.”

“At which point, he would let her down gently,” I assured him. “Trust me. She is absolutely good for him, but the chances of him trying anything are absolutely zero.”

He seemed like he was going to protest, and I could already imagine his argument—you don’t know what teenage boys are like, I’ve been there, it’s all hormones and blah blah blah. And he’d be absolutely right about that. But it didn’t mean he needed to worry about Mabel.

“Oh, good,” Stan said, and nodded. And that was it. He immediately rose in my esteem.

“You sure we don’t need to make them come in?” I asked.

“I told you.” He put a reassuring hand on my back, then seemed to realize that was a little too intimate and quickly reversed. “They’re totally safe.”

I gave a brief nod. We stood together in the doorway, watching teenagers throw sticks in the fire, watching the shape of a pig move through the dancing shadows of the campfire and eating fallen marshmallows. Then, catching me by surprise, Stan headed outside to join them. I grinned as he punched Dipper lightly in the arm and seized the mostly-empty bag of marshmallows, only to begin throwing them himself.

I was a little apprehensive about accepting his offer, now that I was by myself and thinking about it. I was now guaranteed to see a _lot _of the guy, and while I liked him so far that was a bit daunting. I’ll just go on vacation with my kids and spend half my time hanging out with a total stranger, yep yep, good call Teagan. And cook for him and his family, no less. Why was I so good at picking up strays? I sighed and went to wash up the dishes as I continued scolding myself.

But I couldn’t really _regret_ it, either.


	3. Day Five of Vacation

The next morning I woke up early, and had a chance to sip a large mug of coffee on the sofa before the kids emerged from their bedroom. I finished the book I’d been reading (of course, it was the roguish son who had committed the crime, not the awful duchess) and baked some blueberry muffins. They still weren’t up, so I had a second mug of coffee and baked some chocolate chip cookies, too.

At around 10:00, I learned that the twins already had my kids’ phone numbers, which should not have been a shock. Nicky came barreling out of the bedroom, short brown hair sticking up in all directions, pulling on a shirt as he went. “Dipper says we’re going to the arcade in town! Stan’s gonna drive us. Yay, muffins!” He shoved one in his mouth and headed toward the door with most of it still sticking out.

“Hey Mom, can I go to the arcade with Dipper?” I said sarcastically. “I suppose so, sweetie, do you need a ride? No, thank you, his uncle is taking us. Alright, when will you be home? Probably lunchtime, Mom, but I promise to call if it changes. Okay, have a nice time, I love you! Love you too, Mom.”

“Ha ha,” he said, barely discernable around the muffin in his mouth. “I promise I’ll text if we need a ride anywhere else.”

“Text if you _go _anywhere else,” I corrected him firmly. “You don’t need to wait for my permission, as long as you’re with people you know, but at least keep me informed.”

“Okay. Love you! Bye!” He skipped out the door, letting it slam behind him.

Dave emerged more slowly, spending half an hour locked in the bathroom before emerging. I gave him a sunny smile and wished him good morning. As usual, this got a mumbled, unenthusiastic reply. I played on my laptop for a few minutes, giving him time to wake up the rest of the way. After hearing a few text alerts chime on his phone, I dared to ask him if the plans to go to the mall had panned out. That got my first smile of the day. “Yeah. Mabel’s forgotten about the cooking thing for now. We could do that later this week, if you don’t mind? You could teach me, too.”

“But you already know how to cook,” I exclaimed in surprise.

Dave shook his head. “Not like you. I can cook as well as maybe a college freshman or something. I won’t starve or burn the house down. But you haven’t taught me how to make all the good stuff. How to impress somebody.”

That was an interesting choice of words. “Who exactly do you think I’m trying to impress?”

He shrugged vaguely.

“Not _you_, anyway,” I scoffed affectionately. “Are you going to eat anything before going to the mall?”

“Nah. We’ll get something at the food court.” He tapped at his phone briefly. “Can you drive us? And maybe pick up Candy and Grenda too?”

“Do you know where they live?” Secretly, I was excited at the idea. I could at least meet these people and feel involved for fifteen minutes!

“No, but Mabel does. She’s on her way.”

There was a knock on the door about ten seconds later. I hadn’t even put on socks yet when she came bounding in, fresh-faced and sweet as ever. “Hi Dave! Hi Teagan! Ooh, muffins! Can I?”

“Help yourself,” I smiled.

She took one, but then paused to look at me. “You don’t want me to call you Mrs Dave’s Mom, do you? I mean, I don’t wanna be rude…”

I giggled. “I’m going to pass on the _Mrs Dave’s Mom_, but thank you. It’s Kettle, if you’re feeling formal, but—” I threw her a conspiratorial wink. “I don’t insist upon formalities.”

She laughed, and Dave smiled. Then, a few minutes into the car ride, she laughed again out of nowhere, absolutely cackling to herself. “What’s so funny?” Dave demanded, both amused and impatient.

“Teakettle,” she gasped, wiping her eyes. “T. Kettle. Your name’s Teakettle.”

Had I not been driving, I’d have closed my eyes and prayed for sanity. “My name is _Teagan_. And don’t think no one’s made that joke before you, missy.”

She apologized, but kept snickering as she gave us directions to her friend’s house. This was not helped by the realization that _D. Kettle _rhymed with teakettle, so Dave could apparently also pour her hot water. She was so entertained that we almost found it amusing…for the first time in quite some time.

At our first stop a tall, curvy brunette got into the car. At first glance I thought she was closer to Dave’s age than Mabel’s, but as soon as they started talking together I revised my opinion back down. Puberty was weird and unpredictable. Next we picked up a short girl with hair that slowly transitioned from black roots to bright pink tips. They were both very polite, and everyone (even my own son) thanked me repeatedly when I dropped them at the front doors of the mall. Dave, like Nicky, promised to keep me updated on his position and be home in time for dinner.

And with that, at 11:20 in the morning, I found myself at a loose end. I drove back to home base, but this time instead of letting myself into our cabin I went to knock next door. The red Diablo was parked out front, and I actually looked at it for the first time. It was an _old _car. The kind that took a lot of love and knowledge to keep running. The kind that still had leather bench seats big enough to stretch out and fall asleep on. I’d always kind of wanted to ride in one…okay, that was a lie, I’d always kind of wanted to have sex in one. Just because my little Honda was so impossibly cramped and the novelty fascinated me, not because I really wanted to have sex in public…

But of course now the thought was in my head. And I was going to have to go greet Stan with that thought in my head.

I could just stay out here for a while. Think about really unsexy things until I was calm enough to chat with an older gentleman without blushing over stupid things.

Not that he _acted_ much older. Or like a gentleman. My lips curved up in a smile that I couldn’t seem to suppress. I might be attracted to him…just a little bit, and certainly despite myself. I wasn’t quite sure what it was, but…. Oh, fine. It was the gray hair. Nice, steely gray all over his head…and his arms…and his shoulders and chest, from what little I’d seen and okay yes body hair in general was kind of a thing for me, having it gray like that just made it more enticing. Why did I just think the word _enticing_? About the old guy next door? Dammit woman, pull yourself together here.

_Inconvenient_, that was the word I should have been thinking. Only _I _could find a guy twenty years my senior with a paunch and perpetual five o’clock shadow sexy. For any normal person, this would not be a problem to overcome. I could acknowledge that I did, and that was annoying, but I could cope with it. I’d coped with attraction before. I’d just ignore it.

_So stop thinking about getting into the back seat of that car with him!_

Sometimes, when you haven’t had sex in two years and have no intention of changing that, finding someone attractive can be a real pain in the ass.

“Admiring the Stanmobile? Can’t say I blame you.”

I jumped about a mile, spinning to see Stan laughing just outside his front door. I laid a hand across my thumping heart, putting a hand on the hood of the car to stay standing. He laughed even harder. “I wasn’t _trying _to scare you. Sorry.”

He didn’t _sound _sorry. I glared at him, or at least tried to, as he came across the grass and around the firepit toward me. Given I was still shaken, I’m not sure how successful the glare really was.

It must have been enough to convey my displeasure, because he laughed again. Jackass. Scoundrel. Dammit. My mouth twitched into more of an embarrassed smile. “I startle easily.”

“Got it.” He made a _click_ sound with his mouth and aimed a finger at me. “So absolutely don’t come up behind you after dark and yell _boo_.”

I laughed a little, finally getting past the shock and shoving my earlier thoughts aside. “I mean, knock yourself out, if you want to get whacked in the face.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.” He grinned, strangely proud of that fact. “So you like her?”

I blinked, and remembered he’d seen me staring at the car. My hand was still on the hood, from steadying myself. I left it there; the car had already soaked up some of the heat of the day, and the warm metal felt nice. “Yes,” I told him honestly. “I mean take my opinion with a grain of salt because I know _nothing _about cars. But I’ve always thought the Diablo sounded really cool. This is the first one I’ve ever seen up close and personal.”

Stan nodded, looking profoundly pleased. “I’ve had her since high school.” He put a hand on the hood too, affectionately. “She wasn’t _new _then. Would never have been able to afford her if she had been.” He laughed, a little bitterly. “But we were both in pretty good shape back then. I learned enough mechanics to keep her going, so…” He spread his hands wide.

I ran my hand over the hood, admiring it despite the rust spots in evidence. “Is this what you drove the boys to the arcade in? Thanks for that, by the way.” That was a stupid question, what _else _would he have driven them in? I attempted to revise it. “Did they appreciate that they were sitting in a piece of history?”

“Of course not,” he scoffed.

“Kids never do,” I agreed, shaking my head. “Ouch though, leather seats are rough in summer.” Especially since I doubted it had air conditioning. “Maybe you should let me pick them up this afternoon.”

Stan shrugged agreement, then hesitated. “You, uh, you can get in. If you want to check it out.”

I didn’t actually squeal in excitement, but my body language was so eager I might as well have. He opened the driver’s seat door for me, looking pleased. I slid into the seat and put my hands on the wheel, pretending I was driving. It was huge. And worn, and warm, and ancient. No modern buttons on the dashboard. No automatic windows, but the kind you had to physically roll down. The leather was already sticking to my skin, making my glad I wasn’t wearing shorts. There wasn’t even a tape deck, just the radio. It smelled faintly of smoke and sweat.

I was in love.

Casting a delighted look out the window at Stan, I wiggled over into the passenger seat, then scooched partway back again, stretching myself out to see how far I could reach. I ran my hand along the dash, not caring about the ingrained dirt or dust worn into it. I bounced a little, and slid back behind the wheel. I rolled down the window, turning the crank rapidly, and rested my arm in the open spot. “Well, this is awkward. I’ve never fallen in love with a car before.” I was utterly unable to contain my grin.

His was wide enough to match. “Scoot over. I’ll take you for a ride.”

I made a sad face. “You’re not going to let me drive?”

Stan laughed. “I think you’d steal it if I gave you the keys.”

“Nah, I’d never know how to take care of it.” I scooted back into the passenger seat.

“You could always hire a mechanic.”

My mouth twisted in amusement. “Do I look that rich to you?” My jeans had huge rips in the knees—not the stylish kind, but the kind from being worn too long—and my lime green tank top had cost less than ten dollars at Target. Then again, even if I _was _rich I’d probably be wearing this. It was comfortable. “Besides, we’re still neighbors for the next few weeks. You’d just steal it right back.”

He chuckled as he dropped into the driver’s seat, pulling a keyring from his pocket. He was wearing a cleaner shirt today—blue, this time, accented by a heavy gold chain around his neck—but his unshaven face looked even scruffier. “It’s not stealing if it’s already mine.”

“So see?” I ran my hand loving over the dashboard again. “Nothing to worry about.” After fixing him with a wide, innocent stare, I leaned in close to the radio and whispered loudly “Don’t worry, baby, I’ll find a way for us to be together.”

Stan laughed again, and I settled back into the seat, feeling inexplicably pleased with myself. “Alright, tour-guide-slash-bodyguard. Where are you driving me to?”

“If you’re gonna trust me, you’ll just have to wait and see.” He turned the keys. The first two times the engine didn’t catch, but on the third try it started purring noisily.

“I never said I trusted you,” I protested, holding up a hand. “I mean, enough to drive my child around or not murder me, sure. That doesn’t mean I trust your taste or judgment.”

“Sweetie, you’re _sitting _in my taste and judgement,” he pointed out brusquely.

“Oh.” He had me there. “Alright, surprise me, I guess.”

As soon as the car started moving, it didn’t much matter _where_ he was taking me. I could feel the faint rumble of the car all around me, the breeze from my open window blew a strand of loose hair across my cheek, the sunshine was pleasantly scorching my shoulders through the windshield…and the car radio was playing hits from the 1960s and 70s. My personal favorite genre.

“I love this song!” I exclaimed, coming perilously close to making an excited shriek like Mabel when _This Perfect Point in Time_ came on. Stan shot me a startled glance, but didn’t actually comment until after _Amplify Me Amaryllis_ came on and I started lip-synching. When _Caught It On the RumorMill_ came on next, I _did _shriek in delight. “What station _is _this?” I demanded, turning in my seat to face him. “I have to find it in my car!”

We were driving down Main Street now, but he seemed fine with looking at me instead of the road. “101.2 FM. I wouldn’t think this’d be your type of music!”

I shook my head vehemently, still doing some light lip-synching to Marvin Baye. “I love oldies! This is what I grew up listening to. I barely encountered 80s and 90s music until after I was married, and I’m not super impressed with anything that’s come out since then.”

He made a face at the mention of modern music. He also ran a stop sign. I flinched. Maybe trusting him to drive Nicky somewhere safely _had _been a mistake. “Uh…”

Stan glanced my way, more quickly this time before returning his attention to the road. He grinned. “Relax. You’re in good hands.”

“Technically no, I’m in a car,” I replied tightly, and refrained from making any comment about his hands. Since they were right there on the steering wheel, though, I glanced at them. A few spots discolored from age, a collection of small scars, nails that could really be cleaner. For all that, though, he had large, strong hands. And I was going to stop thinking about that right now.

He pulled into a parking lot, coming to a stop between yellow lines as I craned around in my seat to see where we were. A bowling alley. Hm. Not my first choice, but as long as he didn’t expect me to get any strikes it could be fun. And it’d be hard for me to get lost in a bowling alley. I let myself out of the car but left the window down; it was turning into a toasty summer day.

The door on the other side of the car slammed as Stan joined me on the outside. He surveyed me seriously. “So you’ve got good taste in cars, you’ve got good taste in music, I figure you’ve got to like bowling. Right?”

I held up a finger, winced, held up the finger again, hesitated. “Like it? Absolutely. Just, ah, don’t make any assumptions about me being any _good _at it.”

His face fell just slightly. “You’re bad?”

“N…” I started to deny it, but realized he was going to see me in action very shortly and I might as well keep his expectations low. “Pretty bad, yeah.”

He looked disappointed for a second, but quickly shrugged it off. “Then I can wipe the floor with you. Or give you some tips.” He winked.

I grinned. “Somehow I don’t see you giving me any useful tips until _after _you’ve got me soundly beat.”

He was already walking toward the entrance, but that still got a small laugh. “I like you,” he said in that baldly confident, self-amused way that could mean something or could mean absolutely nothing. “Hurry up now, kid, before the manataurs get you.”

I knew he was having fun at my expense, but I hurried to catch up to him anyway. “_Man_ataur?” I demanded, raising an eyebrow.

He raised his right back. “You heard me.”

Still bridling slightly at being called _kid_, I shot back. “Of course I did. _I’m _not the one who probably needs a hearing aid.”

“Oooh, kitty’s got claws!” he chuckled, unphased.

“Now you _really _want to give me helpful hints on my form, eh?”

He surveyed me rather more blatantly than I was expecting. “Your form’s just fine.”

I dropped my jaw, and he threw his head back and laughed loudly. “Too far? Seriously?”

“My _bowling _form, you dirty old man!” I stalked ahead of him, because it was the only thing I could think of to hide my giant grin. Totally crass and chauvinistic, and yet the compliment had probably made my day.

I had my face back under control by the time we got inside. Stan cast me a sidelong glance when he caught up to me, but made no move to apologize. Which meant he could probably tell I’d liked it. Damn it.

The bowling alley was exactly what you’d expect of a small town bowling alley. A little run down, a faint smell of beer and bad pizza, generally poor lighting, and about twenty shiny lanes. Glad that I hadn’t worn sandals, I followed Stan up to the counter. The young man behind the counter greeted him by name, and though Stan showed no signs of knowing _his_, he was cordial. “I didn’t know you worked here…yeah, just got back last week…yeah, they’re here too, out with their friends already…nah, it’s Soos’ now, we rented a place…oh, yeah! This is Teagan.”

I’d been watching the only other current customers, a group of men about Stan’s age, but jumped at the sound of my name. I smiled at the guy, and raised my hand in a barely-there wave.

“We’re neighbors right now,” Stan continued, making me feel somehow conspicuous. Tourists were a dime a dozen around here, but ones that hung out with town locals, apparently, were worth discussing. “I said I’d take her around until she got used to the place. You know, protect her from all the…_weird _stuff.” He wiggled his fingers theatrically.

My cheeks heated slightly at him sharing this joke with random people, but the young man behind the counter just shared a conspiratorial smile and nodded. I still wasn’t quite sure I wasn’t the subject of a long con, but it did seem like seem like there was some shared secret there. I paid for a couple games and pairs of ugly bowling shoes, and we headed over to lane twelve.

“So who was that?” I asked as I sat down, kicking off my regular tennis shoes.

“Huh?” Stan shrugged. “Oh, him. I dunno, I saw him with Wendy and her crew a few times.”

Wendy…I knew I’d heard the name. “Oh, the twins’ friend?”

He nodded, leaning over to unlace his own shoes. “She used to work for me. Soos might have hired her again this summer, actually. I haven’t really had a chance to ask.” He got lost in thought for a minute, then seemed to remember he was explaining Wendy to me. “She’s a few years older. She’d have to be a, uh…a junior now, I think?”

I nodded. Nicky had definitely mentioned her in the context of older kids Dave had tried to look cool for. Okay, time to find myself a bowling ball. After picking up a few experimentally, I settled on a dayglo green twelve-pounder with finger holes that felt right. Stan chose one that was maroon, and a few pounds heavier.

“I’m kind of surprised you don’t have your own ball,” I commented as we punched our names into the little screen.

“Oh yeah? I look like one of those old guys that spends all my time bowling?” He jerked his head toward the other patrons.

Clearly, the answer he was looking for was _no_, though a minute ago I would have said _yes_. “Well, you did offer to help me up my game.”

“Alright, so maybe I’ve been here a few times before,” he admitted. “Maybe for a while I was pretty regular. But why would I buy my own ball when they have em here for the price of admission? I mean, they’re gonna charge you that either way, right?”

“Charge _me,_ you mean,” I said with a smile. Cheapskate! “Alright, show me what you’ve got. How embarrassed am I going to be?”

Pretty embarrassed, apparently. He took down eight pins with his first ball, and picked up the rest of them with the second.

“Fuck,” I said, staring at the screen flashing _SPARE!_

Stan laughed at me. “Your turn, sweetheart.”

I leveled a glare at him before walking to the end of the lane and staring down the pins. I was going to knock them _all _down!

Yeah right.

I did get six pins instead of a gutterball, which let me feel confident for about a minute—until my second ball only picked up one more.

“It’s okay, sweetie,” Stan said as he got to his feet, deliberately goading me. “Not everyone can be as amazing as me.” I glared at him again, but it didn’t have any heat to it. I’d known this was how it was going to go down, I might as well have fun with it. Part of me wanted to miss the pins completely next time, just to see his reaction.

We bowled a few more frames. With all the up and down and back and forth, there wasn’t a lot of time or need for conversation, which was relaxing in a way. Stan’s game seemed to be pretty consistent. Mine was entirely unpredictable; some frames would be surprisingly good, but then I’d turn around and fail in the next one. He won easily, but when we started the next game he did begin to throw the occasional tip at me.

“Bring it all the way back up,” he suggested at once point.

I turned, confused. “What do you mean?”

“Your arm. Before you let go of the ball. Bring it way back.”

I still didn’t quite get it, but thankfully instead of trying to position my body like some stupid rom-com trope, he shook his head in exasperation. “Jeez. Just watch me.”

I watched closely, and started to see what he meant. When I tried to do it myself, it was very bad. He laughed. I flopped back into my seat and made a face. “It feels weird!”

“Course it does.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “You’ve been doing it wrong for years.”

I cocked my head to the side, considering that. “I only go bowling once every year or two. Does that even count as enough time to form a bad habit?”

“Sweetie, you’re asking the wrong guy. I’m nothing _but _bad habits.”

So apparently he was going to keep calling me _sweetie_. That was a thing now. I rolled my eyes. He bowled a perfect strike. Grrr.

We wound up playing a third game. I told Stan it was just because he liked winning, but I actually did feel like I was improving a little bit. I was never going to be bowling team material, but after a few tries his suggestions started to feel more natural. I got two spares. After making sure there were no messages from the kids, I decided to spring for one more game. “If you want to keep beating me after this, though, _you’re_ paying,” I warned him as I returned from the counter.

“Ha, you really _will _believe anything,” he told me with a smirk. “Tell you what, if you beat me this round, next game’s on me.”

I shook my head. “Why would I even take that bet? The odds of me winning are obviously nil.”

“Then it doesn’t hurt you anything to take it,” he pointed out.

“Fine. But we can’t play _too _much longer. I still need to buy stuff for dinner tonight.”

“Oh, right, the big scary grocery store. You need me to come in and hold your hand?”

I stuck out my tongue at him. It was a pathetic and immature response, but it was the only one I could think of. He lifted both eyebrows, smirking just slightly, and suddenly my face felt hot. I hurriedly stood up to get my ball from the ball-return.

I lost the round, of course. Not spectacularly, but it wasn’t exactly a close match, either. And I had fun losing, so there was that.

“Thanks,” I said as we made our way back out to the giant boat of a car. “I haven’t done that in ages—and the last time I went, it was with my boys.”

“Are _they _any good?”

“Slightly better than me last I checked, but nothing to write home ab—” My words cut off in a hiss as I tried to pull on the molten-hot door handle. I shook my hand and tried again, pulling hard and fast to get it over with. The door came open and I slid in, hissing and shifting again at the superheated leather seats. Stan was already behind the steering wheel, seemingly immune, making me feel like a complete wuss. “If we bring steak home in this car, it’s going to be _cooked_ by the time we get it back.”

“So? I’ve got plenty of canned meat in the cupboard.”

I started to say one thing, and then stopped and gave him a look that was purely puzzled. “Okay, _how_? You’ve barely been in that cabin a week, right? Why would you have stockpiled canned food in there already?”

“Hey.” He looked faintly defensive. “You’re not the only one who knows how to go to the grocery store.”

It boggled the mind. “But…but…”

“I had to eat _something _before the kids got here.” Seeing me still at a loss for words, he started to smile. “When you spend the better part of the year on a boat, you eat a lot of fish and canned food.”

My shoulders relaxed. That was a good point. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Of course, I’ve been eating it pretty much every day since we got back, too. What’s wrong with generic brown meat?”

I gagged in my throat. “Um, _everything_?”

“Oh, I see, you’re too _good _for it?” he sneered playfully. “Hoity-toity city girl from, uh…heh.” He rubbed the back of his skull. “Where _are _you from?”

It was my turn to smirk. “Obviously not the big city, or I’d be able to avoid getting lost in grocery stores.”

“Obviously not the country, or you’d be able to avoid getting lost in the woods,” he retaliated, turning the car on.

Well, he had me there. “A town not much bigger than this, actually. In Michigan.”

He brightened. “Hey, one of the states I’m still legally allowed to visit!”

I covered my face in my hands and laughed, hard. “Are you serious about all that? Who _were _you in your past life?”

“Same guy I am now!”

Dodging the question. Of course. “Where are _you _originally from, then?”

Stan was keeping his eyes firmly on the road this time, I noticed. “Jersey.”

“Ah. That explains the gold chain.”

He must have spotted the tight smirkiness of my grin. “You don’t like it?” he asked, gruff and almost confused. It was kind of cute.

My smirk relaxed into a real smile. “No, I _do_, actually.” Normally I hated jewelry on men, but I meant it this time. “It suits you.”

He didn’t have a comeback to that one. But I thought he looked pleased.

_I Endorse That Sentiment_ came on the radio, and once again I exclaimed in delight. “I _am _stealing this car! Even considering all the skin I’m going to lose when I have to rip myself off this seat, it’ll be worth it.”

“I’d like to see you try,” he said mildly, and then politely ignored me as I unabashedly bopped to the music. I was a terrible singer. I was a terrible dancer. I was a _fantastic_ lip-syncher. World class, and no one was going to tell me otherwise.

We got to the grocery store. “So are you coming?” I asked as I unbuckled myself.

“Nah, you’ll be fine. Just watch out for that interdimensional portal by the freezer section.”

“Interdimensional portal clean-up on aisle three,” I murmured, mostly to myself.

“No, the freezer section is aisle _twelve_,” he corrected me, scandalized, and opened his door. “Jeez, how’d you even survive here before you found me?”

* * *

By the time we got done buying supplies, I had texts from both Dave and Nicky requesting pick-up. Since the Stanmobile was enormous and we were already out, it made perfect sense to grab them (along with Dipper and Mabel) on our way back home. Miraculously, despite the extra time that required, the steaks were still raw by the time we got there. I left the teenagers to do their thing while I went for a short walk along the _road_, then set about prepping food.

I could hear excited voices from the boys’ bedroom, but none of them were high-pitched enough to belong to Mabel. I was willing to bet she had Dave with her at her house, and that was Dipper in there with Nicky. Ha, poor Stan.

Not that I really felt sorry for him. That man could hold his own and then some. Part of me was tempted to try and steal his car keys, just because. Imagining his face upon realizing I’d gotten the better of him for once made me grin hard enough to hurt my cheeks. I’d had _fun _today, damn it all. He was gruff and cheap and obnoxious, and I wasn’t sure I’d use the word _nice _to describe him…but definitely fun. I didn’t feel like I was keeping a lonely old man company, I felt like I was actually going out on the town with a new friend.

And I really did love that car, holy shit. Without quite realizing I was doing it, I started constructing plans to steal his car keys. He must take them out of his pocket at some point. I was saving literal pick-pocketing as an extreme back-up plan only, because there was a pretty good chance he’d notice and think I was going for something very different. Thinking about how he might react in that situation was enough to make me go very still and intense. That thought was a little too big for my head, spilling over into other parts of my body.

Damn it.

I needed something else to think about.

Maybe Dipper would let me in on his DD&MD campaign. It was totally fun to play with your friend’s mom, right? I sighed.

I’d finished my book, but I’d brought another. Dinner could wait a few minutes. I got retrieved the book from my bedroom and sat down in the living room with it. At first, the pages couldn’t hold my focus. My mind kept straying, to a multitude of places…but they were always with the same person, and doing approximately the same thing. Eventually, though, after reading the same page four times, I started to get caught up in the story. I was twenty pages in when I realized how distracted I’d gotten, and hurried to peel some potatoes before the ravenous hordes descended.

I’d just gotten them sliced and into a pot when the front door opened. Dave led the way, but Mabel skipped in behind him with a “Hiiiiii, Teakettle!”

I smiled at them both. “Hi! Glad you’re here, I need your input. Do you still want to cook together tomorrow, and if so, what are we cooking?”

“I dunno, chicken?” Dave suggested tentatively. I noticed that Mabel had somehow tamed his curls into a fishtail braid, and he was wearing glitter eyeshadow. He was rocking it.

“You look _amazing_, by the way,” I told him, for both their benefit. “Do you like it?”

He ducked his head, unable to hide his shy smile behind his hair. “I don’t think I could wear it in public. But yeah, kinda.”

Mabel beamed. Her braid wasn’t as beautiful as his, but she was wearing even more glitter. “I’m a natural!”

From the recliner in the living room, Stan snorted. I hadn’t even heard him come in behind them. “There is nothing natural about that much glitter, pumpkin.”

“Shows what you know,” she told him airily. “Unicorn blood is naturally sparkly!” She dropped her voice. “It’s also rainbow!”

Dave’s hand went to his face, concerned. “I’m…not wearing unicorn blood, am I?”

There was seriously something wrong with this town.

“Of _course _not, silly!” Mabel exclaimed, for some reason winking at me as she said it.

I tried to get the conversation back on topic. “So, chicken?”

Dave nodded. “You know how you do the roast chicken, with dressing and asparagus and roast potatoes…?”

Oh, he wasn’t kidding around. That _was _one of the dishes I busted out when I was trying to make a good impression or reward special behavior. “If you want to roast a chicken from scratch, we’ll have to start in the middle of the afternoon,” I warned them.

“That’s okay!” Mabel assured me. “We can do scrapbooking while it cooks. Bakes? Cooks.”

I looked over her shoulder into the living room. “Looks like we’re heading back to the store tomorrow morning.”

“And you still can’t handle it on your own?”

“No, I just want to take your car.”

“Ha!”

“Just make yourself at home, why don’t you,” I added sarcastically.

“Oh, thanks! Don’t mind if I do.” He sat further up in the chair to peel his t-shirt off. There was a white wife-beater underneath. And a lot of body hair. He gave a loud sigh of relief and sat back, oblivious to the blush spreading up my cheeks like wildfire. I couldn’t seem to look away, like some sort of sex appeal train wreck…which, now that I thought about it, was a very apt description. And, dear God, was he going for his _pants_?

Mabel noticed, too. “Grankle _Stan!_” she squealed, scandalized. “_Gross!_”

“What?” he grunted, unconcerned. “I’m wearing boxers! This is what I always wear at home.”

The girl looked like she was fighting an internal battle with herself. She walked over to the recliner rather calmly, leaned over the edge, and put her hands on her uncle’s shoulders. “_There is a lady present!_” she hissed forcefully.

I couldn’t help it—I laughed. “It’s okay, Mabel. I’m no lady.”

Her eyes widened, and Dave hid his face in his hands. “_Mom_…”

I covered my mouth with the back of my wrist, trying not to laugh _again_. “No, I just mean…I live with teenage boys. If it’s gross, I’ve probably seen it—no offense, Dave. So it’s cool. No one has to impress me. But, uh, you could leave a _little _to the imagination, Stan…”

“Do I look naked to you?” he asked, raising an eyebrow as he gestured vaguely to himself.

I stared for a minute. I couldn’t think of a single damn thing to say. I raised a finger, opened my mouth, and had nothing come out. I shut it again, put down my finger, and turned back to the stove. Behind me, I heard Stan laugh.

For a while, I left everyone else to do their thing, whatever that might be, as I seared steaks in excessive amounts of butter. I heard the TV and some talking, but released myself from the obligation of focusing on any of it. If Stan was essentially hanging out in his pajamas, and Mabel was walking into the boys’ bedroom to get Dipper without so much as knocking, then they no longer counted as company. That meant I no longer had to entertain them. Hell, maybe I’d change into my pajamas later and let Mabel do _my _hair, too.

By the time dinner was ready, Dave and Mabel had set the table again without being asked, and Nicky and Dipper were writing lists of numbers on some paper at the coffee table. Stan was actually examining the detective novel I’d left open on the sofa. It all felt rather relaxed and homey, like an extended family I’d never known I had. When we moved to the table, I steadfastly ignored Stan’s blue striped boxers, instead opting to ask Nicky and Dipper what they’d been working on. I got a very lengthy answer about character sheets, which was only interrupted when Mabel loudly started talking about Waddles. This allowed me to politely segue away from the gaming talk and ask why he hadn’t joined us for dinner tonight.

After that Stan asked what they’d done all day, though Mabel seemed the only one inclined to give an abundance of details. I asked where the rest of their friends—the ones from yesterday—were doing today, and whether they’d run into any of them. Stan looked rather pointedly at Dipper at that point and asked how Wendy was. We made plans to buy the latest batch of groceries and then pay another visit to the Mystery Shack tomorrow, after which I’d start teaching Dave and Mabel the arts of fine…er, chicken. I took pride in my cooking, but “cuisine” sounded like a stretch.

It was after we’d cleared the table that I noticed fate was on my side, after all: Stan had left his pants lying by the recliner. I picked them up with obvious disdain, folded them, and set them on the arm of the sofa. “This is so classy,” I said loudly as I did it, making a show. “So hard to believe that you spend most of the year on a boat with no one but a bunch of fish to offend.”

“Hey now, I offend Ford all the time,” he objected, as though I’d insulted him.

He didn’t seem to have noticed that I’d slipped his car keys out of his pocket as I folded the pants. Fighting not to grin in triumph, I dropped them into my own back pocket.

_Duck-tective_ was on TV shortly after that, and the twins insisted we had to watch. Why we couldn’t have gone to watch it at _their_ cabin was a mystery. Probably just that we were already comfortable _here_. All four kids piled onto the sofa and Stan was back in the chair, but given I preferred to stretch out on the floor anyway that was fine by me. I lay on my back, angled toward the TV, crossed my arms behind my head, and giggled at the ridiculousness of the show. It was both utterly stupid and completely brilliant at the same time. Stan appeared to have dozed off in the chair by the end of it—ha, maybe he was more of a typical old man than he let on—so I put on my nightshirt and sprawled out on my bed to read for a while rather than kicking them all out.

Eventually I heard Stan’s gravelly voice from the main room again, telling the twins they needed to get back home. They only put up a few token protests, so they must have been ready for some down time, too. After that I let my boys play on their phone and Gameboy for a while as I did the dishes, which took long enough that I wished I’d ordered them to help me. I’d get started on it earlier tomorrow! It also got my nightshirt wet, so I changed into my back-up one. It was tighter and shorter, but as long as I didn’t have to wear pants to bed I was a happy camper.

Not that I was going to bed yet. After sending the boys to their room, I called to them that I was putting some trash outside. But once out the front door, instead of walking around the side to the large metal trash bin, I walked stealthily through the grass toward the Stanmobile.

I’d decided I was going to move it around the side of them empty cabin a few down from us. It wouldn’t take him long to find tomorrow, but it was far enough out of view that he wouldn’t be able to see it without going for a stroll. I grinned fiendishly to myself. I wouldn’t be able to keep the car for myself, sadly, but it’d be fun to put one over on him after all his teasing. I fingered the keys eagerly, staying low unless anyone looked out the window. There were no lights in the windows of their cabin, though. It was probably safe. I waited a few more minutes, just to be sure. My heart was hammering with excitement. I was _not _usually the type to pull pranks or break the rules, but somehow I just couldn’t resist the temptation this time.

When my legs started to cramp and the mosquitos started to bite, I wrapped my hand around the door handle and tugged it open. Then I stood up slowly, sliding my butt into the seat before I’d even finished straightening up.

The seat felt different than I remembered. I didn’t even have a chance to look down and see what might be off about it before a pair of strong hands grabbed my arms.

I nearly fainted.

The _useful _thing would have been to scream, but the shock was so strong my vocal chords just shut down instead.

“I _knew_ you were gonna try and steal it!” Stan’s voice said in my ear, sounding nothing if not totally smug.

A wave of intense relief followed my terror, and I felt my eyes roll back in my head as all my muscles gave out. I sighed and slumped sideways, onto the seat of the car.

Stan’s grip on my arms loosened, letting me slide off that way. That was a good thing, since if I’d stayed put I would have been sitting in his lap and, well…

I remembered that I was wearing a shirt that barely covered my butt when I was standing, but was still too petrified to summon any embarrassment. I slouched in the passenger seat, breathing heavily.

“Holy shit, I didn’t give you a heart attack, did I?” _Now _he sounded worried. Just great. “Are you okay?”

I nodded weakly, clutching at my chest. Nothing worse than a really good jump scare. And I probably deserved it. But still. Breathe, Teagan. In and out, nice and slow. Just breathe.

Stan patted me very awkwardly on the back. He sat in silence for a minute, and I thought he must feel really awful, but then he started chuckling.

Slowly, just so that I could give him the evil eye, I sat up.

His eyes must have adjusted to the dark, because he clearly saw my glare. It made him laugh even harder.

“You set up me,” I said softly as the truth dawned on me. I felt my mouth hanging open slightly, completely stunned by this turn of events. I snapped it closed, only to speak again—louder this time. “You set me up, you complete bastard, you _set _me _up_!”

He was howling with laughter now, doubled over in his seat. “I can’t—I can’t breathe! You should have seen your face! Ow!”

“I hope _you_ have a heart attack!” I admonished him angrily. But I was starting to laugh, too. “I can’t believe you fucking _set me up_!”

“Language, sweetheart,” he scolded me, still gasping for breath.

“I…I…what were you going to do if I _screamed_?” I demanded. “It would have scared the kids to death!”

“Yeah, why _didn’t _you scream?” he asked, starting to get himself back under control. “I see why you want a bodyguard now. Your instincts are _terrible_.”

I jabbed a finger into his chest. “You don’t get to insult me right now! I—I—I can’t _even_! How long have you been out here?”

He shrugged. “Couple hours?” He proceeded to lean back in the seat and cross his arms behind his head, totally relaxed. “I’ve slept in here plenty of times over the years, believe me.” His eyes flickered my way. “Hey, you’re not wearing pants.”

“Neither are you,” I shot back, but even I could hear the defeat in my voice. I’d really thought I’d been brilliant, darn it. “So was all of it a set-up for this?”

“All of it?” He seemed very distracted by my lack of pants. Good, serve him right.

“Stripping down to your boxers in my living room? Did you _know _I’d take the keys? Did you know I’d seen you put them in your pocket earlier? Did you do it deliberately, so I’d see? How long have you been planning this?”

“A conman worth his salt would never give up secrets that easily. Or would he?” He winked at me, blatantly enough that I could see it despite the lack of light. He leaned close enough that I could feel his breath on my ear as he whispered “Since the minute you told the car you’d find a way to be together.”

I gulped, not liking the feelings that went off inside me when he did that. “And I thought I was so smooth.” In that moment, I swear I wanted nothing more than to slide back into his lap—this time facing him—and find out what his mouth tasted like on the inside. I was suddenly hyper-aware of how thin my underpants were beneath my nightshirt, and how very little it would take to lie back in the bench seat, pull him down on top of me, and—

“I need to get back inside!” I said abruptly, sliding further along the seat to the passenger door. “I told the boys I was taking out the trash I’ve been out here way too long they’re going to go worried so good job haha night Stan!”

Before he had a chance to get a word in edgewise, I was running up the grass toward my front door.

Oh yeah._ Smooth_, that was my other middle name. Right after _Graceful_ and _Internal Compass_. Teagan _So Fucking Smooth_ Kettle.

Right.


	4. Day Six of Vacation

After a long night of lying awake in bed, I woke the next day with several things on my mind.

First, I needed coffee. Preferably very strong coffee, very soon.

Second, it would never occur to Stan that I’d try to steal his car _again_, not after the disaster last night. And tonight, I’d beat him out there.

Third, I was probably going to get humiliated again somehow in the attempt.

Fourth, I was kind of okay with that, since I was pretty sure the only reason I wanted to pull this prank in the first place was because I was attracted to him.

Fifth, I was pretty sure it was mutual.

And sixth, that was a big problem. But I couldn’t come up with a solution until I got coffee. And come on, there was no _way _he’d expect me to try again tonight. And even if he did, and I wound up alone with him in the car in the dark again, was that really such a bad thing? Oh wait, yes it was. I needed to figure this out. I needed some coffee.

Ugh, I wished I could shut my brain off sometimes.

Due to all the tossing and turning I’d spent the night doing, I’d overslept this morning. Nicky had actually woken me up, concerned something was _wrong_. I’d yawned and reassured him, and now I was freshly showered and standing by the coffee pot, willing it to brew faster. I needed coffee. And I was totally stealing that car tonight. It’d be epic. Unless it wasn’t. I wondered what he’d do if instead of screaming when he grabbed my arms, I kissed him? I could already imagine what the scruff on his chin would feel like against my cheek and damn it this was why I hadn’t slept last night. _Coffee. Now_.

When it hit ten o’clock, I gave Nicky the go-ahead to run over to find Dipper. I poured my second cup of coffee and took large, necessary sips of it as I listened to Dave waking up. I tried reading my book for a little bit again, but everything slid off my brain like water off a duck’s butt. Back. Whatever.

Apparently I could now be trusted to visit the store on my own, because Stan was taking the twins out to the Mystery Shack this morning. They wanted to spend some time just hanging out there, talking with Soos and perhaps Wendy. Nicky had opted to go along with them, and Dave wanted to stay here and get an hour or so all to himself for the first time in almost a week. I figured he was probably going to play loud guitar music and watch porn on his phone. I was in no position to judge, but I’d also rather not walk in on it, so it was important he got quality alone time here and there.

I was starting to remember where things were in the store. I picked up chicken and potatoes and all the accoutrements, along with the ingredients for chocolate layer cake. I went back home, staying clear of Dave’s closed bedroom door, put everything in the fridge, and went back outside. No one was around, and it was nice and sunny out again. I went back in for my book and blanket, and changed into my bathing suit. I lay down in the sunshine, letting the humidity envelop me like a warm blanket. I sighed in contentment, finally able to relax and focus on my book for a bit.

I woke up some time later with my face stuck to the pages of the open paperback, a small trail of drool at the corner of my mouth. I sat up groggily, rubbing my hand against my mouth and along my face. The sun was still blinding. I picked up my phone, checking for missed messages and to see the time. Past lunchtime now. Well, hopefully Dave had enjoyed all that time with the house to himself. Though—yep, the Stanmobile was back now, and Mabel was running around the outside of the cabin chasing her pig and giggling. I’d slept through their return, it seemed. I stretched and lay down on my back instead. Just for a minute. I wasn’t terribly concerned about tan lines, but it seemed wrong for my back to get _all_ the cancer-rays.

I didn’t fall asleep this time, and hoisted myself to my feet after about ten minutes. Mabel was now sitting on the porch, talking on the phone and scratching Waddles’ belly. I waved to her, and she waved back. I went inside to find my eldest son. He was in his room, poking at his phone, either texting or playing some sort of game. “So you really want to spend the day cooking?”

“Yeah!” He actually sounded excited to do something with me. It felt like it had been a long time since I’d heard that.

“Okay. You want to go get Mabel? I figure we’ll make dessert in advance, then I’ll show you how clean a chicken, and then we get to chopping and mixing and all that good stuff. Also, advance warning, there will be music.”

“Can I _choose _the music?”

“Can you focus on the cooking if you do?”

“Can you avoid playing that awful old stuff and doing stupid dances if I don’t?”

“Hey now, no need to get personal!”

He flushed pink. “Sorry. But you can be kind of…sorry.”

I laughed. “It’s fine. I know I’m a dork. Fine, I will suspend my motherly duty to embarrass you. At least for the afternoon. You may pick the music.”

That got a real smile from him. “Thanks, Mom!” He got up, ready to go grab Mabel off her front porch.

“Hey,” I asked, catching him before he could leave the room. “Have you seen your brother?”

Dave nodded. “He and Dipper are exploring in the woods. They were going to find some old lab or something? Anyway it’s okay, Wendy’s with them.”

I didn’t love that, but I guessed I’d have to trust them to be safe. He ran off for his new best friend, and I started assembling the appropriate tools in the kitchen.

The nap in the sun must have cleared my head, because we wound up having an excellent time that afternoon. Between Mabel’s enthusiasm and Dave’s attention to detail, the cake batter had gone into the oven looking promising and come out looking even better. Both of them were utterly disgusted when I made them grope around inside the slimy chicken cavities, but triumphant when they got it in to cook. The music was most peppy boy band stuff and love ballads; it was difficult to keep myself from bopping around to them as I chopped vegetables, but I didn’t know enough of the lyrics to really horrify Dave. No one chopped any fingers off during the slicing process. The house smelled awesome. Around six o’clock, I poured myself a glass of rum and made up a couple of Shirley Temples for my assistants. Aside from some occasional peeking and stirring, all that was left to do was sit back and wait.

Nicky came in shortly after that, followed by Dipper and a pretty redhead in a flannel shirt and baseball cap. They were all as dirty as if they’d spent the afternoon rolling down hills in the woods, and Nicky proudly showed me a long dried scratch along his left arm. Dipper casually told Mabel that the gnomes had taken over Grunkle Ford’s old bunker. She seemed pleased that they’d found it again. Wendy was properly introduced to me, and invited to join us for dinner—but I suggested they go wash up. Like, a lot. They retreated back outside, and a few minutes later I heard shrieks and laughter. A peek out the window showed me that they’d figured the best way to clean up was to have a water fight.

Nicky came in to dry off after that (a change of clothes was needed) and Dipper and Wendy ran over to the other cabin to change. No one questioned the gnome thing. Mabel organized Dave and I into a “braid train” on the living room floor. She was just finishing braiding my hair into a crown when the rest of the crowd returned with Stan. They didn’t even knock this time, but at least everyone was wearing pants.

“Hey Sleeping Beauty,” Stan greeted me.

For a minute my brow crinkled, and then I remembered my nap in the sun earlier. “I should have known you’d spy on me while I was sleeping,” I responded with a toss of my head that made Mabel squawk.

“Not my fault you passed out in the middle of the yard,” he said, shrugging carelessly. “You should really try to get more sleep.”

Oh, he _knew_. And he’d probably stood out there for ages, checking me out in my swimsuit while I was sleeping. I tried to glare at him, but had my head redirected by Mabel. “Just sit _still_, Teakettle,” she told me, ironically bouncing with excitement. “I’m almost done!”

“Well hurry up,” I told her. “I need to check on the potatoes.”

“I’ll do it,” Dave offered, moving into my line of vision as he walked toward the stove.

I sighed and remained patiently seated.

“There!” Our resident stylist announced at last. I stood up in relief, arching my back in various ways as I tried to shake off the stiffness of sitting. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

That question must have been for everyone, because I heard a murmur of assent. I stopped stretching and put my hands up to cautiously feel my hair.

“Super cute.”

“Wow Mom, you look pretty!”

“Nice job, Mabel.”

I did a little twirl, despite the fact that I wasn’t wearing a skirt. “Really?”

Of course I looked for Stan’s reaction. Because I was a complete and utter tool. He had a strange look on his face, which I thought was a good thing, but I couldn’t quite identify what he might be thinking. He coughed. “You look nice.”

“Thanks.” With great effort, I kept my smile sweet and platonic, fought off the blush. “Let me go take a look for myself!” I went into the bathroom to check it out. She really _had _done a nice job. It seemed like a waste, because I knew by tomorrow morning it would be completely destroyed. Chestnut and white mixed together in the braid, making my hair look almost like dark gold. It was smooth, and long enough to wrap all the way around my skull—yet she’d left a few strands hanging down around my face, accentuating the color of my eyes. I felt pretty, and beamed at my reflection.

But enough preening. Dinner was waiting! I went back out, still unable to keep the smile off my face. “Next time I’m going out to a fancy party, remind me to hire you,” I told Mabel. “But for now, let’s wash hands and set the table. I think everything’s about ready.”

It _did _turn out very well. I loved giving the kids all the credit and watch them glow under the compliments of their friends and family. Watching Mabel bring out the giant chocolate ganache cake at the end and seeing Dave serve up slices was probably the highlight of my day. Dipper asked if I could teach him and Nicky, too; despite wanting to impress his new hero, it was clear Nicky could care less about cooking. But Wendy asked if she could join, instead, and Dipper lit up like a sunrise. Alright, so the rest of my vacation was going to involve giving nightly cooking lessons to teenagers. I hardly thought I was qualified, but I was tickled pink that they wanted me to. If my kids’ friends thought I was cool, maybe eventually Nicky and Dave would start thinking it, too.

Stan had clearly enjoyed dinner and dessert, impressing me with how much he was able to eat. But he was starting to look dissatisfied, and I realized I was making plans to steal the kids away from him more. “Do have anyone you want to invite over?” I asked tentatively. “Soos and his girlfriend, maybe? Or any friends? I don’t mind.” Really, we needed more space. This tiny dining room was not cutting it.

He looked slightly cheered by that. “Yeah! I’ve got a lot of people I need to catch up with still. And I’m not gonna get it done during the day as long as I’m chauffeuring you around town.”

“Which you didn’t even do today,” I couldn’t help pointing out blandly.

“Yeah, and I had a great time!” I couldn’t tell if he was bluffing, teasing, or just being tactless.

“Cooking dinner doesn’t take all day,” I pointed out. “What’s everyone doing tomorrow?”

“We’re going fishing!” Stan answered with poorly contained excitement. “Right, kids?”

The kids didn’t groan or complain this time, though Dipper did object to having to get up so _early_ to go fishing. Nicky immediately tried to invite himself along, but Mabel did express some reluctance to put that many people into Stan’s old boat. It was apparently _not _the same one he’d spent the last year on with his brother. There was some debate as to whether it was even seaworthy (lakeworthy?). If even Mabel was concerned about safety, I didn’t want my kids anywhere near this boat.

“We could rent one though, couldn’t we?” Nicky asked, refusing to give up on the idea. “They always rent boats at big fishing spots. And then we could, you know, pull up alongside each other or something!”

“That’s a great idea!” Stan exclaimed with enthusiasm. “That way I can show you all my fishing tricks.”

“And hear his jokes and stories,” Dipper groaned theatrically.

“And sit still for hours.” Mabel made a tragically sad face.

“Hey!” Stan glared at them. “You knuckleheads want your friends to come along, or what? Anyway, my stories are great!” He was considerate enough to look to me before making plans to drag my kids into the wild blue yonder. “What do you think?”

“Um…sure?” I both shrugged and smiled. “I haven’t been fishing since I was eight, but I don’t mind sitting out on the water watching fish.”

“_Catching _fish,” he corrected me. “In fact, don’t even plan dinner tomorrow. We’re gonna be having _fish_.”

Dave made a face. “I don’t _like _fish.”

“You’re dead to me,” Stan told him flatly.

Dave cracked a smile, actually starting to _laugh _softly.

Nicky gave him the side-eye, and then started giggling too. “You know what? I don’t like fish, either.”

“_What_?” Stan exclaimed, grabbing at his chest like he might have a heart attack. “You gotta be kidding me! You’re the one who wanted to come along!”

Nicky shrugged, still giggling. “I like _to _fish.”

I put up a finger, trying to look ashamed. “I, uh, don’t like fish much, either.”

“What the hell’s wrong with all of you!” Stan demanded, stricken. “You’re monsters!”

The whole table was laughing by then, so I was sure he was doing it mostly for show. It was kind of adorable.

“I can’t look at any of you right now,” he muttered, waving us off in disgust and walking away from the dining area. I thought he might go for the full effect and stalk right out the front door, but instead he dropped into the living room recliner and picked up the remote.

The fact that this wasn’t even his cabin was not missed. Wendy and I exchanged tight grins, fighting furiously not to burst into fresh laughter. Nicky and Mabel were both still openly giggling, Dipper was shaking his head, and Dave was hiding his laughter behind his hand.

I cleared my throat loudly. “Why don’t you guys help me clean up?”

“But Mom, we did all the work, remember?” Dave protested. “That means you should help us with the dishes!”

“Yeah, Teakettle!” Mabel chimed in. “We already spent _all day _cooking. We’re _tired_.”

Dipper rolled his eyes and got to his feet. “I’ll help you rinse and dry, Teagan.”

“I can dry,” Nicky offered, refusing to be shown up. I accepted their offer, and three freeloaders went into the living room to relax.

“Whatcha watching, Mr. Pines?” I heard Wendy ask, and mentally I grabbed at the name with relief. _Pines_! That was their last name. Now I didn’t have to be all weird and ask.

And tomorrow I was going fishing, bright and early. So I needed to avoid another sleepless night. So far, that was on track. I’d had zero chances to flirt with Stan today, and was feeling much better for it. Platonic was nice. I could do platonic.

But I was still going to steal his damn car.

Only, he’d admitted last night that he’d deliberately put the keys in his pocket in front of me, and then just as deliberately spent the evening in his stupid boxers so I could take them. Where did he _usually _keep his car keys? _Where would I keep my car keys, if I was Stan?_ Not in the car itself. Not in his pocket. But somewhere accessible…somewhere in his cabin.

“Anyone want to come for a sunset walk with me?” I asked mildly when the dishes were all put away. If someone volunteered, I could probably persuade them to help me sneak around. If everyone took a pass, I was all clear to sneak around on my own. Couldn’t loose.

“Sure, why not,” said Stan, hoisting himself up from the chair.

I stared at him. He _knew_.

He stared back, mischief in his eyes. Probably waiting for me to call his bluff.

No dice, old man. “That’d be great! You can protect me from the eyeball bats.” I fluttered my lashes, the perfect damsel in distress.

I saw confusion flicker over his face, probably trying to figure out where I got _eyeball bats_ from. Joke was on him, I’d read it on one of those DD&MD sheets Dipper and Nicky had left lying around.

“It’d be my pleasure,” he said, and slouched over to offer me his arm.

“What a gentleman,” I cooed.

“Are…are you guys getting any weird vibes right now?” Dipper asked his friends plaintively.

Nicky nodded his head vehemently. “Gross.”

I lifted my eyebrows purposefully at him, hoping he’d notice and understand, but he was already looking away. I wondered briefly if I could text him, and get him to go steal the keys for me while Stan and I were out walking. But that would require sending the text without Stan noticing, something I’d never been good at. Oh, wait! Lightbulb!

“Hold on.” I let go of Stan’s arm—which I certainly hadn’t noticed was rather muscular, no, don’t be ridiculous. “I need to use the bathroom real quick before we leave.” I darted down the short hallway and into the bathroom, locking the door behind me. Then I pulled my phone out of my pocket and tapped out a quick message to Nicky. _I’m trying to pull a prank on Stan. Can you go find his car keys for me while we’re gone? Without telling everyone, if you can. Check either his dining room or bedside table._ Sent.

I flushed the toilet and turned on the faucet for a minute, for show. Then I strolled out innocently to join Stan where he was waiting by the door. He held it open for me, and I smiled sweetly and thanked him.

We walked a hundred yards or so in silence. “That was a nice thing you did, with dinner,” he ventured after a minute. “Letting them take all the credit.”

I blushed faintly at the unexpected compliment. “It was my pleasure. They did a good job, and I had fun teaching them.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe once you go through all the kids, you could teach me a few things.” He coughed into his elbow. “Not that I need any. But you know—they seem to like your food.”

I beamed. “Lucky we wound up being neighbors then, isn’t it.”

Stan was noncommittal. “I guess.”

He went back to silence. Then—“You really okay with coming along fishing tomorrow?”

“Of course.” It was my turn to seem slightly surprised. “Why wouldn’t I be? That sounds fun.”

“Just, you know. Last night.” He looked off into the woods beside us, avoiding my eyes. “I shouldn’t have scared you like that.”

Oh, that was all? Thank goodness. Unless he was trying to hint at my running away like a frightened rabbit after he got a little too close. But no, this was Stan. I didn’t think he hinted about anything.

“It’s fine.” I smiled wryly. “I probably deserved it.”

“Nah, you’re a nice lady. Actually, I kinda like that you like that car.”

“Aww, really?” How sweet!

Stan nodded. “And the music, too. I don’t meet a lot of girls that are into, uh. Stuff from that era.”

That line melted the rest of my cautious reserve. I bumped my elbow playfully into his side. “Well, I am. I like big, older things.”

He shot me a sidelong glance. “Is that right.”

I swallowed hard, immediately regretting my moment of levity. “It. Ah. Might be. Yes. But…”

A smile flashed across his face, and it looked bitter in the fading light. “There’s always a _but_.”

My eyes widened a trifle. I hadn’t expected to hear _hurt _in his voice, or that sort of resignation. I sighed. “_But_, you may have noticed, I’m a mess.”

He stopped walking, which meant if I didn’t want to run away from this I had to stop walking, too. Running for the hills sounded like a pretty good option, but I stopped walking. Stan was staring at me, looking…well, stunned. “That’s it?” he said, like he was struggling to comprehend my words. “You’re a mess, that’s it?”

I eyed him warily. “Yes…?”

“Are you serious?” He started to laugh.

“Yes! Why?” I heard my voice getting shrill, unsure what to make of this reaction.

He laughed harder, leaning over and pressing his hands into his knees to hold himself upright. I stood there, hands on my hips, waiting expectantly. “You are just…you’re too much, sweetheart, seriously. _You’re _a mess? What the hell do you think _I _am?”

I had lots of answers to that, but none of them would sound good right now. I saw what he was getting at. I said nothing.

“I’m banned from half the states in the country, for crying out loud! My dad kicked me out of the house when I was eighteen, and I tried every get-rich scheme in the book. I fell out with my brother, and until last year I saw him a grand total of _once_ in all that time. I’ve been to _prison_, sweetie. I spent the last year living on a boat in the Arctic, and now I’m back here for the summer so I can spend time with the only other family I’ve got. But oh, no, _you’re_ messed up.”

I winced—both at all the information he’d decided to share, and at the realization my issues _did _pale in comparison to that. “I…” I fumbled, becoming aware that we were just standing by the side of the road. “I guess you handle it better than me?”

He crossed his arms and lifted his eyebrows. “No, really, go on, what’ve you got?”

I shoved my hands in my back pockets, forcing myself to meet his eyes instead of staring at the dirt. “Nothing that good. The boys’ dad—my husband—died a couple years ago. Latent heart condition, very sudden. To state the obvious, it was hard on them. We’re still getting over it. I don’t feel like I’m allowed to…” I shrugged, staring at the dirt after all. “To want anything outside of that little family bubble, I guess?”

For the second time since we’d met, his hands went around my upper arms. But this time he wasn’t trying to scare me, but offer some sort of reassurance. I looked up at him, feeling miserable and vulnerable. “Hey. You’re—I mean, I don’t know anything about it, I been married a grand total of about six hours outta my whole life—and you’ve done a good job with those kids—but you’re more than just their mom. So you’re gonna _need_ more than that. It’s not wrong.”

“I’m…I know. I _know_. But my instincts are at war with each other. One minute I’ll think one thing, and the next it’ll be the exact opposite.” I gave him a sad half-smile. “Like I said, I’m a mess.”

“But definitely not a spider person who wants to eat me alive?”

I blinked. “No?”

He released my arms, starting to smile. “Or some weird shape-shifting blob?”

“Nnnnnno?”

“Giant squid in disguise?”

I felt a bubble of laughter form inside me, and just like that the tension dissipated. “Definitely not.”

“Interdimensional demon trying to take over the world?”

The laugh broke free. “Stop it! No, I’m very human.”

Stan threw me a wink, and started walking again. “Then I’ll take my chances.”

I hurried to catch up. We walked in silence for a minute. “Thanks,” I said sincerely.

“No problem.”

Another pause.

“Am I allowed to ask what you went to prison for?”

He glanced at me. “You can ask anything you want!” And yet he did not volunteer an answer. Well, the twins’ parents let him around _their _kids, it couldn’t be anything too appalling. It felt like it’d be rude to pry anymore, given how many skeletons he’d just freely pulled out of the closet for me.

“So tell me one thing,” I said after a minute of fairly comfortable silence.

Stan looked wary. “Go on?”

“Zombie penguins. Real, or made up?”

He barked out a startled laugh. “You got me. I made those ones up. Squid was real, though.”

I’d believe it when I saw it…but all the same, I was inclined to believe him. “One day, you’re going to sit me down and explain this town to me.”

“Pretty sure that’s against the law here.” A beat. “So okay.”

I giggled.

“So hey,” he said, slowing down and turning to me again. “My feet are killing me here. Do you think your kids have had enough time to go through my house looking for the car keys? Can we turn back?”

“_What_?”

He pulled a keyring out of his pants pocket, dangling it in front of me.

“I…wha…_damn it_!” I stomped my foot like a child as soon as I’d gotten over the shock. “There is _no way_ you could have known that! Does this dumb town give you psychic powers?”

He was _so _pleased with himself, the bastard! “Nah, that was Gideon’s racket. And you were so _obvious_. The walk, sending texts from the bathroom, the way you kept staring thoughtfully at my pants all night…”

“Maybe that was just me checking you out,” I suggested petulantly.

“No, you’ve got a different look when you do that.” I glared at him, and he grinned back. “I’m one step ahead of you, sweetie. Always one step ahead.”

“Yeah? Well, well…let’s see you beat me home, then!” I took off at a run. It was all I could think of.

And ha, he wasn’t expecting _that_. “What the—hey!”

He was faster than I’d been expecting; that’d show me to make any assumptions based on age in the future. I’d been planning on just jogging for a minute, but I had to full-out sprint to stay ahead of him. He also had longer legs, now I thought about it. I was not a natural runner, and I was already starting to regret this.

I stopped, panting, and barely a second later Stan stumbled to a halt beside me. “Okay, okay,” I gasped, holding out my hand. “Truce?”

“Not on your life,” he responded, grabbing my outstretched hand and using it to propel me in the wrong direction. I stumbled, and he cackled and took off again.

I debated falling and feigning an injury to lure him back, but at this point I was fairly sure he wouldn’t buy it. Instead I recovered my balance and sprinted after him, ignoring the burning in my muscles and lack of air in my lungs.

I didn’t realize my mouth was open until something hit the back of my throat. I coughed, but it was too late—I could feel it stuck there. A _bug_, that’s probably what it was. There were plenty of them flying around right now. And a large one, too. I’d probably swallowed a freaking _horsefly_ or something. I slowed to a jog and then a full stop, trying to swallow it. Nope, still stuck there. I gagged. Thumped my chest, coughed again. Leaned over and gagged some more. Ugh.

“You okay?” Stan had stopped running when he realized I’d stopped, and now put a hand uncertainly on my back.

I nodded, eyes watering. “Swallowed a bug.” I paused, swallowing again. “I think it went down, though.”

“Heh. Gross.”

“It was.” I made a face. “Mind if we walk now?” We were almost back, anyway. “I promise I won’t try to steal your keys.”

“Sure thing.” We walked along for a minute. It was definitely dusk now, both beautiful and spooky out here. The fireflies were starting to come out. “You were kidding about not liking fish earlier, right?”

I laughed, which started me coughing again. “I’m not a huge fan. But if you catch them, I promise to eat them. Okay?”

“What about if _you_ catch them?”

“Oh, I’m releasing anything I catch. I feel bad for the poor things. What _is _that?” There was something glowing near the base of a redwood a few yards away, the sort of yellowish green of the star stickers Nicky had on the ceiling of his bedroom at home.

Stan followed my line of sight. “Could be anything. Be careful.”

I took a step forward, interested. “It’s not big. I think I’m safe.”

He actually put an arm out in front of my chest. “Don’t count on it.”

But now I was curious. “Will _you _look, then? I need to know what it is! Natural things don’t glow like that.”

“Exactly.” Even in the fading light, I could see him grimace. “Okay. Stay here.” He had to leave the road, approaching the weird little light as though it might blow up at any minute. When he got there he crouched down, and I heard a disbelieving snort. “It’s a toad.”

“A _toad_?”

“Yeah.” He motioned me toward him, and I hurried over. Sure enough, it was a fat toad, about the size of my fist, squatting amongst the tree roots. Other than the fact that it was glowing, it looked exactly like every other toad I’d ever seen.

I went down on my hands and knees, looking closer. “Hi, little guy!” The toad stared ahead with glowing toad eyes. I blew out a lungful of air in what would have been a low-pitched whistle, if I could whistle. “Whoa.”

Seeing that I was getting comfortable, Stan sat down against the tree to catch his breath. “It’s just a toad. Phew, I am gonna regret that running tomorrow morning, I can already tell.”

“I’m sure it was worth it. You got to make me look like an idiot twice in one night.” I poked gingerly at the toad. It lifted the leg I’d touched, objecting to the contact, but didn’t hop away. “So…glowing toads, that’s normal around here?”

He leveled me with a stern expression. “Haven’t you been listening to Dipper and Nicky all week? Haven’t you been listening to _me_?”

“Of course I have. But they’re kids, and you aren’t an entirely trustworthy narrator. No offense.” A few trees further back, I could see another ball of light. The fireflies were everywhere now. Beautiful and eerie. I shivered, and sat down next to him.

“None taken. I don’t even know why I told you any of it was real.”

“Because it is.” It was easier to believe, sitting out here amongst the trees, surrounded by glowing toads and little blinking lights. “I didn’t think there _were_ fireflies this far west. I swear I read that somewhere.”

Stan shrugged. “Maybe there aren’t. Could be it’s just here. Gravity Falls is kinda like that.”

Part of me realized, without consulting my brain, that this setting could easily be construed as romantic. My heartrate picked up a little bit. I shifted closer, so that our arms were touching, and it started racing. “I’m sorry I didn’t fully believe you.”

“I notice you agreed to let me show you around town anyway, though.”

“Well, yeah.” I managed a laugh, but even I could hear how anxious it sounded. “You clearly…” Being this close to him was very distracting. I shifted again, and my hand brushed his leg. “…um. Know your way around.”

His voice was pitched low, suggestive, even gravellier than usual. “I haven’t showed you anything yet.”

Suddenly my breath was hitching in my chest. I wanted so badly to move closer, to lean in and feel that overgrown stubble against my cheek. I wished _he’d_ make a move, and save me the stress. I should get back up. I needed to get back.

“Gearing up to run again?” Stan asked, and I knew he wasn’t talking about our race earlier. I wasn’t looking, but I felt the weight and heat of his hand on top of mine.

My mouth felt dry. “Maybe. I—I told you I’m confused.”

He removed his hand, holding both of them up in front of him. “And I’m not gonna push it. I don’t need that.”

“But…” My voice was so tight in my throat. “If I wanted to…?”

He looked at me very seriously through his glasses. “Wanted to _what_, Teagan?”

How had I gotten myself here? I should never have been stupid enough to leave the road. I’d forgotten what it was like, to have my heart hammering so hard I felt sick. To be so close to having something I wanted. To wanting something this much. _Kiss me_, I tried to say; my lips formed the words but no sound came out.

Stan cocked his head to the side. “What?”

I leaned in closer, letting my hand rest on his forearm. “Kiss me?”

A smile flickered across his face. “That an invitation?”

“A request,” I whispered.

His free palm touched the side of my face, turning my head to a better angle as he shifted himself closer. He didn’t _say_ anything else, but he _looked_ at me, and he raised his eyebrows in one last silent assessment. I don’t know what he read in my face right then, but he must have liked it. He leaned forward, gently guiding my face closer, and I closed my eyes.

His lips were dry but soft, warm. The edge of his glasses pressed into my cheek. My mouth moved against his automatically, more urgently each time until I let my lips part for the very tip of my tongue. Stan didn’t hesitate to reciprocate, opening his mouth more and brushing his tongue against mine. I paused long enough to pull more air into my lungs—the kiss seemed to have sucked all of it out somehow—but didn’t open my eyes or pull back any more than I had to. The second I had my breath I resumed the kiss. I shifted my weight again, moving my chest closer to his, deepening the kiss. His hands moved from my face to my shoulders, and he definitely wasn’t pushing me away.

I felt as if someone had flicked a switch, and something in me was powering back up. Every sensation was stronger than usual. I heard the frogs chirping in the trees. I felt the heat of him everywhere he touched me. I could _smell _him: faint traces of smoke, and sweat, and leather. I could taste the traces of chocolate cake he’d eaten earlier. Overcome by desire to keep this going, I shifted again, getting to my knees without removing my mouth from his. From there it was easy to move one of my legs over his, sliding into his lap against him like I’d wanted to the other night in the car. The part of me that was still thinking had worried this might be pushing my luck too far, but instead of stopping me he slid his hands eagerly down my back to the base of my spine, pulling me flush against him.

My hands went around the back of his head, feeling his unshaven jaw and letting the ends of his hair brush my fingertips. His fingers tightened against my back, and a small groan of desire made its way through my throat. I needed this. I _needed_ this. I wanted him, and this extended moment was perfection.

It had to end, though. We couldn’t exactly start ripping each other’s clothes off in the great outdoors, within sight of concerned teenagers or passing motorists. Reluctantly, I pulled back, resting my hands on his shoulders and facing him. It was dark enough now that I couldn’t tell if he was blushing, but his cheeks did feel warm. “Sorry. I…” I laughed nervously. “Got carried away.”

“Good. I mean. That was fun.”

It felt like someone was reeling me back in, a magnetic force moving my face closer and closer to his again. “I wouldn’t have stopped,” I murmured, lips almost brushing his skin. “But I think we need to get back to the kids. They’re going to think we’ve been murdered.”

“Nah, they’re probably gonna think we’re doing exactly what we _are_ doing.” He laughed.

“Oh, God.” I sat back, putting my hands over my face. “You don’t really think so? I, I, I, I didn’t _mean _to wind up doing this! I never even thought you’d volunteer to come on a walk!”

“Oh, you wanted it to be a secret?” He sounded…slightly disappointed. “I don’t know if that’s hot, or insulting.”

I dropped my hands from my face and leaned closer again, this time resting my forehead against his. “I just don’t think my kids want that image of me in their heads. At least, I hope not!” I giggled, giddy with adrenaline. “I guess they can guess—but we don’t need to be too obvious, you know? Not, like, do it right in front of them?”

“Yeah, uh, probably not.” His face contorted, probably picturing the twins’ reactions if they could see us right now. I was still in his lap in a very compromising position, after all. “Right. Let’s get back.”

Pressing my hands against the tree for balance, I hoisted myself back to my feet and offered him a hand up. He took it, then didn’t let it go as we started making our way back to the road. Given how close we’d been getting just a minute ago, having him hold my hand shouldn’t have made me blush shyly, but it did. I felt warm all over, and like my feet weren’t quite touching the ground.

For once, it didn’t seem like Stan had anything clever to say. “You okay?” I inquired after a minute. “I can’t see your face anymore.”

It was a moment before he answered. “I didn’t mean to wind up doing that, either. To be honest I kinda thought you just liked flirting. I didn’t think you actually liked _me_. I figured that was why you backed off every time I tried to…uh. Anyway.” He didn’t let go of my hand, but I could vaguely see him rubbing the back of his head. I was starting to think that was a nervous tick.

“Stan.” I grabbed his other hand, too, pulling me back to face me. “I am _terrible _at flirting. And I was confused _because _I’m attracted to you. I’m on vacation. I have kids. You’re our neighbor. I haven’t been with anyone in literally years. It is a total clusterfuck. But any hesitation you were getting was _not _about you.”

“Are you _sure _you’re not a spider? The last woman who actually seemed into me was a giant spider.”

“I figured as much,” I said, putting my hands around the back of his neck and coaxing him into another kiss. Since we were standing this time, it was harder to ignore how weak it made my knees. I stepped back before things got out of hand. “Trust me, I like you. I don’t know exactly what to _do _about it, but I like you. And now that I’ve admitted it, you’re probably not getting rid of me any time soon. Which could be super awkward if you aren’t that interested. I should have mentioned this before I let you kiss me. Shit.”

“You didn’t _let_ me do anything. You _asked_, remember?” I couldn’t see if he winked, but his tone of voice made me guess that he did. “So what, you’re thinking I can do better than a beautiful woman who likes my car, has a sense of humor, and is probably young enough to be my daughter?”

I ducked my face into my shoulder, blushing. “Okay, point taken.”

“No, seriously, I’m asking. You think I can do better?”

My glare was invisible in the darkness, so I growled audibly. The rough bark of Stan’s laugh reassured me.

The lights of our cabins came into sight. Against the bright outline of the door, it was easy to make out the shapes of two young men sitting on the porch. I dropped his hand but didn’t move to put any significant distance between us. “So…play it cool?”

“Whatever you want, sweetheart.” It might have just been my imagination, but it seemed as though he said the name with a slightly different inflection this time.

“Thanks.” Going for a more refrained show of affection, I bumped my arm into his. “And when can I see you again?”

We were getting almost too close, now; some of the glow from the buildings let me see his grin. “Bright and early tomorrow when we go fishing.”

“Right.” I’d meant in _private_, and he undoubtedly knew it. “Does Dipper ever take that hat off?”

“Probably when, you know, he sleeps and stuff.” He dropped his voice ever so slightly. “Wendy gave it to him last summer.”

“Awww!” I exclaimed. “That’s adorable!”

“What’s adorable?” Dipper asked warily, descending the porch steps toward us.

“And more importantly, where have you _been_?” Nicky demanded indignantly. “We thought something had eaten you!”

I shot a glance at Stan. “Immediately he goes to the eating. In any other town, they’d be worried we’d been hit by a car.”

“If you’re so worried, why didn’t you come looking, then?” Stan asked lightly.

This time, it was the two boys who exchanged glances. “Dave told us not to.”

“Why not?”

“He didn’t want us to be traumatized.”

Damn perceptive teenagers. “We’re _fine,_” I assured them both forcefully. “I just choked on a bug. It made me throw up.” Half-truths always work better than lies. And made me feel far less guilty.

“Gross! You swallowed a bug?” Nicky looked weirdly impressed.

I nodded. “Flew right into my mouth!”

Dipper continued to look suspicious.

Mabel appeared in the doorway, running out to wrap her arms around both of us at once. “You’re back! We were so _worried_!”

“We were gone maybe half an hour!” I protested.

“Yeah, but the cycloptopus come out at night.”

Stan made a face that said _yikes_. I giggled. “Forgot about that.”

“We did see glowing toads, though,” I told Dipper with pride. “Have you studied them yet?”

His eyes lit up. “No! We didn’t have any by the Shack. Where did you see them? Can you show me? What did they look like?”

“They looked like toads, genius,” Stan said affectionately. “You can go out with flashlights and a box, if you want to bring one home to study.”

“Right now?” He jumped to his feet, closely followed by Mabel and Nicky.

“Yeah sure, why not.” Stan flapped a hand. “They’re in the woods on the right if you head south.”

“Be careful of cars!” I called as they dashed back into the cabin for supplies. “And cyclo…cyclotocus?” I turned to Stan. “What’s a cyclotocus?”

“Cycloptopus!” Dipper corrected me loudly from inside.

“What he said.”

“Dipper! Is that the thing Ford had in the Shack last year? That green thing?”

“Yeah!”

“Can you guys stop shouting to each other and just come inside?” Dave appeared in the door, one hand touching his ear.

“Good idea,” I agreed breezily, flashing my eldest a smile that totally did not look guilty at all. “We found glowing toads!”

“I heard.”

Wendy was still here, too. “So did I. I guess we’re going toad hunting now?”

“You guys can.” I told her, flopping down onto the sofa. “I think I’m done for the night.”

“Me too,” Stan groaned, collapsing into the recliner and tugging at his t-shirt. “I have been wearing a belt for _way _too long.”

“You know you don’t actually live here, right?” Wendy laughed. “Unless you’re cool with that, Teagan?”

I wasn’t sure if she was hinting at anything or not, but opted not to care. “Eh, it’s fine. I’ll kick him out when you guys get back from toad-hunting.”

“If you say so.” She leaned in to whisper to Dipper as he returned with a flashlight and ancient Tupperware container. “Old people are _weird_, man.”

“You said it!”

The door slammed shut behind the five of them, apparently united in a common purpose. I approved; dayglo toads _were_ cool. And also, I was alone with Stan again.

“Well that happened a lot sooner than I was expecting,” I quipped. He’d gone down his wife-beater again, and his belt was undone, but he hadn’t actually removed his pants. All the same, now that I was allowing myself to find things like that distracting, it was _very _distracting. “How long do you think they’ll be out there?”

“Could be anywhere from five minutes to an hour.” He sighed and wiggled his pants off, then caught me staring. “What? I wanna be comfortable, so sue me. Actually no, wait, don’t.”

I blushed and turned my head the other way. “It’s fine. Just finding it difficult to dial things back down after that walk.”

“Come on, I’m not an idiot. You’re actually saying _this _gets you going?” I glanced back in time to see him gesturing broadly to himself. Gray, unshaven, square glasses, stained wife-beater, hairy arms and chest, gold chain, respectable gut, blue boxers.

I rose from the sofa and sat back down in the recliner, directly in his lap. I twisted sideways, pressing my palms against his chest. With the t-shirt gone, his chest hair was a coarse rug against my fingers. “Yes,” I purred, allowing for no argument. “Definitely. Absolutely. Do I need to prove it to you?”

“Do what you have to.” He sounded casual, but I was getting some strong physical indications that he was anything but.

“Good.” I kissed his bare shoulder, excitement already churning around inside me. I knew we didn’t have time to do anything too scandalous, and there were several conversations we should probably have before we even tried, but it had been _so _long since I’d given in to any sort of temptation. “Don’t get insecure now.” I kissed him again, on the throat, and his hands found their way to my waist.

“I’m always insecure.” He slid one hand up from my side, between my breasts and up until he had one finger lifting my chin. “It’s why I always act so confident.”

He kept my face tilted up; I could have moved away, but that would have necessitated me wanting to. It meant I was looking right at his face, seeing all the lines there in the bright light of the table lamp next to us. I managed a little shrug without moving my head. “Then just be the same guy I’ve been hanging out with all week.”

“Anyone ever tell you you’re weird?”

“You know all the lines, don’t you.”

“Shut up before they come back.”

“Why don’t you make me?”

“With pleasure.” With one hand he pulled me closer at the waist. With the other, he held my face steady with a palm against my cheek. And he kissed me very thoroughly. Fleetingly, it occurred me to be impressed than an older man could kiss like this, but my brain immediately recognized that as stupid. I’d never _seen _older people kiss like this, because they didn’t do it when the younger generation was in the room. Didn’t mean they didn’t know how to kiss. In fact, they’d probably had more practice.

I moved slowly as we kissed, rotating so that I was alongside him in the chair instead of on top of him. A minute later, he was on top of _me_, and we were both out of breath. I would have killed just to lose one more article of clothing, from either of us. Even a shirt. Just…more.

One of Stan’s hands moved over my stomach, coming to rest on my right breast. Oh. That’d work.

My breath caught in my throat. My back arched forward, asking for more, and the movement turned into a roll that went through my spine and rocked my hips forward. Super subtle.

Voices. Thank goodness the kids were loud. We sprang apart like guilty teenagers, turning on the TV and rearranging ourselves into something like the positions we’d been in when they left. The way Stan’s boxers were pushed upward told a very interesting story, though. I threw the blanket from the back of the sofa at him.

The door swung open. “Presenting,” Mabel announced, running in at the head of the pack. “Drumroll, please?”

I could tell my face was still flushed. Hoping they didn’t notice, I started a drumroll on my thighs.

Mabel stepped back, letting Dipper carry in the Tupperware container, and held out her arms to the side as if pulling back a curtain. “Ta-da! Mr. and Mrs. Starsparkle!”

Sure enough, two toads glowed faintly at us from the container. One made a low, unimpressive croak. I applauded glibly, and shot Stan a look until he joined in.

“I caught one of them!” Dave informed us, sounding genuinely excited.

“I tripped!” Nicky said with matching excitement, displaying a scraped knee to me.

“Whoa, cool!” They brought the toads over and I admired them, as though I’d never seen them before. “Where’s Wendy?”

“She drove herself home. I can’t wait to see what they do in daytime,” Dipper was already gushing. “I’m going to go write about them in my journal right now!”

“I think that’s your cue to leave,” Dave told Mabel with a smile and a nudge as her twin ran off with his prize.

“I think you’re right. Thanks for the tip, Teakettle!” She giggled. “Come on, Grunkle Stan!”

I cast him a concerned glance, wondering if he was quite ready to stand up yet. He groaned like he’d suddenly aged ten years, grabbing his pants and shirt as he stumbled to his feet. “I’m coming, I’m coming! Jeez, would you slow down already?” He fanned an expansive yawn. “You know, I think I’m ready for bed, too. Night, Dave, Nicky. Teagan.” He jerked his head at me in acknowledgement. “Sweet dreams.”

“You too, Stan,” I offered politely. “See you in the morning!”

We watched the door close behind them. I yawned, too. “We’re getting up early for fishing. I think we should probably all get some sleep.”

“In a few.” Dave had his phone back out.

I sighed. “Fine. But _I’m_ going to bed.”

He looked up at me briefly. “You okay, Mom?”

“I’m excellent, thank you,” I told him. It was very hard not to skip all the way to bed.


	5. Day Seven of Vacation

“I brought coffee!”

“Thank you! That’s so thoughtful!” I leaned in closer, dropping my voice. “I could kiss you.”

Stan responded in kind, whispering conspiratorially. “You’d do that anyway.”

“True. Can I kiss the coffee, then?”

“How long did _you_ lie awake in bed?”

“I’ll tell you all about it later.”

“Good, I’m gonna want details.”

I cleared my throat and brought my voice back up to normal levels. I even took a step back away from him, though I took his thermos with me. “I think I could just bathe in it, honestly. Upend this whole thing over me and absorb it that way. What do you think, good look, guys?”

Dave raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “Quit being weird.”

“No, like, maybe fish are into coffee? Has anyone tried that?” I turned back to Stan for confirmation.

He considered this as though it were a legitimate question. “I don’t think so. But unless you want to pose as a giant fishing lure, we’re probably not gonna find out.”

“Or you could just dump the coffee in the lake,” Nicky suggested drowsily.

I pointed a warning finger in his direction. “You shut your mouth, kiddo! No one is dumping this coffee out!” I hugged it to my chest. “_No one_.”

Dipper was the only one to actually laugh. His twin was still rubbing sleep from her eyes, and my boys were just standing by the car looking faintly embarrassed by me.

“So you want to go for a swim, is what I’m hearing.” Stan opened the door of the Diablo, and the rest of us followed suit.

I buckled my seatbelt. “If you try to tip me out of the boat, I swear you will not live to see your next birthday.”

He laughed.

I opened the thermos. “Is there sugar in this?” Not waiting for an answer, I took a sip.

Now, I like my coffee strong. I usually add milk and sugar, but it needs to be _dark_. But I was not prepared for the stuff that came out of that thermos. I spluttered, barely swallowing the mouthful. “Are you sure this is coffee?”

“Gimme that.” Stan took the thermos from me, raising it to his own mouth. I saw his throat move as he swallowed several times. “Yep.” He passed it back. “What’s the problem?”

I looked at him with new admiration. “It’s so strong it’s practically solid.”

“Right, that’s what makes it good.” He turned the key and got us on the road. Dave had already passed out in the back seat, slumping into the window. Nicky rested his head against his shoulder and closed his eyes. I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and took a picture.

Not wanting to disturb the sleepy silence from the back seat, we didn’t speak much on the drive to the lake. Stan put the radio on low, and I nursed the thermos. It was like trying to drink a black hole of caffeine. I was in love. The car, the coffee, the music…the _sunrise_. I gasped as we turned a corner and the lake came into view. The sun was up enough that light sparkled on the surface of the water, but still low enough that pale pink and indigo faded into each other behind the stringy clouds. “Oh, wow.” I turned to Stan, eyes wide with wonder. “It’s incredible.”

“Eh.” He grinned, though. “Get the lead out, kids, we’ve got fish to catch.”

Dipper and Mabel hauled themselves out of the back seat. Dave mumbled something sleepily.

“If you’re good, I’ll let you dunk your mom in the lake.”

His eyes snapped open. “Seriously?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, you guys are _hilarious_. Come on, let’s get this crap out of the trunk.”

There was indeed a boat rental place not too far from where we’d parked. It also wasn’t open yet.

“Oh come _on_,” Stan complained loudly. “Why wouldn’t they be open now? This is when the best fishing is! Well, guess we’ll all have to fit in my boat.”

“Grunkle Stan, there’s no _way_ we can fit six people in your boat,” Dipper informed him flatly.

“What are you talking about, of course we can! I fit you two knuckleheads plus Soos last year, and he’s at least as big as Dave plus Nicky.”

“And what about me?” I demanded as he handed me a fishing pole.

“Guess you get to be fish bait after all,” he joked. “Nah, come on, it’ll be fine.”

Uneasily, we followed him down the beach to an ancient dock. Tied to it was a boat that definitely looked the worse for wear. It was technically big enough to fit all six of us, but also had about an inch of water in the bottom and algae growing up the sides.

“Did you just leave it here all winter?” Dipper asked nervously.

“Of course not!” Stan scoffed. “It spent the winter at the Shack. I put it in the water the day before you two got back in town.” He stepped off the dock down into the boat. “See? Nothing to worry about!”

Dave shot me a nervous glance. So did Nicky. Aw crap. I glanced at the twins. “You know how to swim, right?”

“Of _course_, silly!” Mabel answered immediately, but I noticed she wasn’t rushing to get in the boat.

I sighed, squared my shoulders, and took a fortifying swig from the thermos. “Okay, let’s do this.” Holding onto a post of the dock, I put one foot onto the floor of the boat. It rocked, and cold water immediately soaked through my shoes into my socks, but nothing terrible happened. “Here, pass me your pole, Nicky.”

As the kids passed equipment from the dock into the boat, I risked catching Stan’s eye. The fishing vest and hat he’d donned for the occasion were utterly endearing, and he was absolutely beaming at me. I blushed and ducked my head.

Once we had all the poles, buckets, bait, and various supplies Stan had thought we’d need, I offered my hand to Nicky. He held onto it, sliding down the side of the dock into the boat. Dave stepped in the same way I had, as Dipper and Mabel climbed in backward. Between all of us and the equipment it was certainly crowded, but I found it encouraging that the boat hadn’t taken on any additional water yet. Maybe it was more stable than it looked.

Stan passed me a empty plastic coffee tin.

“What’s this for?”

“You’ve got the seat of honor,” he told me, indicating my spot on the outside of the rear bench. “You get to bail the water out.”

I stared at him. He looked back expectantly. I lifted an eyebrow. “Do I need to get some life jackets for the kids?”

“Stop calling us kids!” Nicky protested, staring excitedly over the edge of the boat. “And I don’t need one, I can swim.”

“I know you can, I’m just worried about if you hit your head or something.”

“Hey.” Stan caught my attention, actually reaching across the middle of the boat to put a hand on my arm. “I’m not going to let anything happen to them.”

I shut my eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m holding you to that.”

“Trust me.”

I nodded. Really, that nod meant more than all the kissing last night.

Luckily, it wasn’t misplaced. The inch of water squishing in my socks never seemed to go away no matter how many times I scooped it out with the coffee tin, but it also never seemed to get any deeper. Nobody fell overboard, though Stan did grab Nicky by the back of his shirt at one point when he leaned too far over. The worst thing any of us suffered was having to listen to Stan reading jokes from a battered book that was literally titled _Really Bad Jokes_. Most of which I laughed at.

Dipper took a bunch of photos. So did Dave. Nicky caught a snapping turtle with a net, which bit onto my shoelace and wouldn’t let go. Mabel reeled in a giant pike. I caught a little bluegill which I immediately released. Stan caught several bass and carp, and showed off shamelessly. He threaded a hook with his eyes closed, nearly caught a fish with his bare hands, and told a lot of probably-embellished stories from his boating journey through the Arctic with Ford which impressed even the twins.

Honestly, I loved listening to the stories. He told them with so much expression, and he was clearly enjoying himself. It also helped me begin to form an idea of what his brother was like. When I remarked on this, all the Pines hurried to paint me a picture of their absent family member. Dipper described him as a genius and hero, Stan called him a six-fingered nerd, and Mabel talked about how brave and kind he was. My boys were only passingly interested at first, but once Dipper started talking about the journals Ford had written about all the creatures in Gravity Falls, he had Nicky’s rapt attention. When they started talking about how they all had to save the world, even Dave became interested.

As the kids branched off into their own conversation, I leaned over to speak quietly to Stan. “I mean, you didn’t actually _save the world_, right? I don’t remember anything weird happening last August.”

“Because we stopped it. If we hadn’t, trust me, you would have noticed.”

“Yeah, but…” Saving the world wasn’t the sort of thing you just mentioned in casual conversation. “Thanks, I guess?”

“I was just looking out for my family. And they did most of it anyhow. But if you’re feeling really grateful, I accept donations in the form of cash.”

I laughed and shook my head. “Fresh out of cash, but I’ll see what I can come up with to express my gratitude.”

“Out of cash?” he repeated, as if it were a bad word. “Oh that’s it, you’re going overboard, sweetie.”

I scooped up some water with the coffee tin and threw it at him.

After a shout and flinch of surprise that made the boat rock, he wiped his face off on his sleeve. “That’s gratitude for you! I save the world, and she splashes me in the face.”

“Only after you threatened to shove me overboard.” I did it again.

Stan picked up the canteen he’d been drinking water from and upended it over my head.

I heard laughter. I swiped droplets and wet strands of hair out of my face. “Thanks. I was getting hot.”

“You’re a dork,” Nicky told me, giggling.

I scooped more water into the coffee tin, angling it toward him. “Oh, you want some too?”

“Cut it out! You’re going to get water on my phone!” Dave protested, clapping his hand protectively to his pocket.

Mabel flicked a fistful of water in his face. He gasped for a minute, then retaliated.

I looked at Stan, shaking my head sadly as the kids continued to splash each other. His vest had soaked up most of the water, but there were still a few drops clinging to his glasses. “You see what you started?”

“What _I _started?”

I smirked. “You heard me.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Do you have your phone on you?”

“No, but Dave and Dipper obv—what are you doing?”

“Scuse me, kids.” He stood carefully, stepped around the bucket between us, and scooped me up under the arms and knees.

He held me against him for about half a second, and I stared up at him in mixed horror and affection. “You wouldn’t!” Oh, no, he absolutely would. I could tell from the way he was grinning. “Stan!” I shrieked in protest, pushing my hands against his shoulder. “Put me down! You’re going to tip the whole boat, you idiot!”

I was only airborne for a second; he didn’t so much throw me as drop me over the edge. I clamped my mouth and eyes shut just as I hit the water, and surfaced a moment later. I tread water, reorienting myself, looking for the boat. It was behind me, and it had _not _tipped—though it was still rocking slightly. Four sets of round eyes were staring into the water.

“See?” Stan told them, extending a hand over the side for me to grab. “Totally fine. All of you put as much weight as you can on that side of the boat. Here we go.” I took his hand, reassured by the strength of his grip, and wiggled on my stomach as he tugged me back into the boat. I sat up, and proceeded to wipe lake water off my face. My hair was plastered to me. My wet clothes were clinging to my body uncomfortably. A piece of seaweed was stuck to my shoe.

I gaped at him. “I can’t believe you did that.” He looked at me steadily. “This is not some stupid movie where being dunked in the water comes off as _romantic_!” He was starting to smirk. “I don’t know why I even _like _you!”

“I did make coffee this morning,” he pointed out.

I rolled my eyes. “I should be a lot angrier than I am,” I said sternly, grabbing the hem of my shirt and attempting to ring it out. “Just be glad everyone else is safe! Kids, I hope you’re paying attention. That is absolutely what you do _not _do, okay? It’s _not_ cute, it’s not funny. Got it?” I jabbed a finger directly into Stan’s fishing vest. “_You _are in trouble, mister.”

Dipper laughed. Mabel looked disappointed. Dave looked a little angry, and Nicky nodded seriously. I got to my feet; Stan had sat back down while pulling me in, so this allowed me to tower imperially over him. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

I saw a flash of glee in his eyes, but he dropped his gaze and stared dejectedly at his knees. “Sorry.”

I put my hands on my hips. “What was that?”

He coughed. “Sorry, Teagan.”

I nodded in satisfaction, sitting back down. “Thank you. I accept. Now I hope you have enough fish for dinner, because I really don’t want to stay out here in soaking wet clothes for another hour.”

It only took a minute for levity to return to the boat. Less than an hour later we were back at the cabins. I took a hot shower, combed my hair out, and changed into dry clothes while the teenagers ran off to explore in the woods and Stan worked on gutting and deboning the fish. He was leaning over a tarp outside when I emerged, knuckle-deep in one of the larger bass. The gore was a little off-putting, but I sat down in the grass next to him anyway. No one was nearby, so it seemed like a good time for a chat.

“How’d I look in soaking wet clothes?” I asked mildly.

He looked up from the fish, eyes sparkling. As I’d thought, not _remotely _repentantly. “Pretty good, actually.”

I shook my head, allowing myself to laugh quietly. “You are setting a _terrible_ example for those children. I should have decked you.”

He removed his hands from the fish, putting his focus squarely on me. “You wouldn’t have managed it. I used to box, you know.”

I didn’t, but it made a sort of sense. “After throwing me in the lake, a gentleman would _let _me deck him!”

Stan shrugged. “I’m not one.”

I grinned. “I know. And don’t tell the kids, but if we’d been alone in that boat my reaction would have been very different.”

“Oh yeah?” He seemed very intrigued by that. “Different how?”

“I would have started laughing the second you pulled me back in the boat, for one thing.”

“And for another?”

“Well, I’d hope you would have kissed me.”

“And?”

“Probably removing some of those soaking wet clothes?”

“Hey, you want to go fishing alone sometime?”

“Not on your life!” I paused and tipped my head to one side, then the other. Considering. Then I let the smile blossom on my face. “Yeah, okay.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s a date.” No one was looking. I pecked him on the cheek, noticing as I did that it was almost smooth. “Hey, you shaved!”

“Have to do it once in a while, don’t I?” He ran one of his hands over his chin with fresh appreciation. “You like it?”

I covered my own face with one hand. “You just wiped fish guts on your face.”

“So?”

I buried my face in _both _hands, shaking with silent laughter. “I do like it. Mainly because now those fish guts aren’t caught in your whiskers. Ordinarily I’d say I prefer a little scruff.”

“I’m hearing don’t shave for the rest of the week.”

“That’s funny, because I’m saying _wash your face_.”

“Lay off. I’m not done with the fish yet.”

Fair enough. “Speaking of. I’m running into town to pick up some vegetables to go with it. Any requests?”

“Careful in Aisle Twelve.”

“I know. So no vegetables? I was thinking like a red pepper risotto.”

“You must really like cooking.” He turned his attention back to slicing open the bass. I averted my gaze.

“I do. So I’ll just need the keys to the Stanmobile, and I’ll be back in a bit?”

“Ha. Nice try.”

I sighed exaggeratedly. “Fine. What did you say that radio station was?”

“101.2.”

*

Despite not being much of a fish person, I was pretty impressed with how well Stan’s catch of the day turned out. There was very little left over by the time we all left the table, and everyone seemed quiet and satisfied after a day of sunshine and water. We collectively sat around the living room nibbling on cookies, watching _Cash Wheel,_ and shouting out random answers at the TV. Stan was pretty good at it, but most of our guesses were hilariously wrong.

After yesterday, I hated the idea of going to bed without having enjoyed any opportunities to get Stan alone. But on the other hand, the black hole coffee had worn off a long time ago and I hadn’t slept nearly enough last night. I gave up and went to bed as soon as the Pines headed back to their cabin.

At least I slept well that night.


	6. Day Eight of Vacation

I woke up at a reasonable hour—later than yesterday, but earlier than the day before. I wasn’t aware of any major plans for the day, but that didn’t mean the kids weren’t making their own plans. After spending all day yesterday with me and Stan, I had a feeling they’d want to steer clear of adults today. That was how teenagers worked. It was typical. What was_ strange_ was the way I was kind of hoping that they _would_.

What was also strange was Mabel turning up at my door before Dave or Nicky was even awake. She had Waddles cradled like a giant baby, setting him down in our living room as soon as I invited her inside. “So I was talking to Candy last night about how fun you are to cook with and her and me and Grenda still need to have a sleepover because it’s been _so long_ since we got to and remember how you said maybe you could teach them how to cook too? Well I was kiiiiind of hoping that you could do that tonight? And we could have our sleepover _here_? I mean I have to share a room with Dipper at _our _cabin and he doesn’t want to be there for a girls’ night but I thought hey, _you’re _a girl! So maybe all the boys could stay with Grunkle Stan and we girls could hang out together?”

Good thing I’d already had my daily dose of caffeine. “Um…I guess it’s okay with me. But you’d have to run it by your uncle, too. And your friends’ parents. They don’t even know me!”

“You took us to the mall the other day, didn’t you?” she asked, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world. “And anyway I already told them how you’re practically dating Grunkle Stan so that makes us like family. Their parents are _fine _with it!”

I suddenly felt the need to sit down. “You told them…what?”

“That you’re practically family!” She was going a mile a minute, but she wasn’t unobservant; she noticed my reaction. “Uh-oh, was I not supposed to say anything?” She dropped her voice theatrically. “Is it a _secret_?”

“I’m…not dating your uncle,” I said lamely. It almost came out sounding like a question.

“Well _duh_, I said _practically_. So is it?”

“Is it what?”

“A _secret_!”

“There’s, um…kind of? I guess? How did you…” 

Mabel blew a raspberry. “Oh, Teakettle!” she exclaimed, with an implied _you’re so silly_ following it. “It’s _obvious_ you guys like each other! I’m a _super_ matchmaker, you know.”

Oh dear, how to phrase this. “Is it…obvious…to anyone else?”

Understanding dawned on her face. “Oh, you mean like Dave and Nicky and Dip-dip?” I nodded. “Of course!”

Ugh. I sat down at the dining room table, dropping my head onto my arms.

She patted my on the shoulder. “Cheer up! We’re not _super_ grossed out or anything. Dave’s worried he’s going to break your heart, but I told him Stan would never do that. He’s—” She held up her fingers in an A-OK sign, peeking through the circle with a sunny smile. Then she stopped and cocked her head to the side. “Can Dave come to the girls night too?”

Relieved at the abrupt change of subject, I managed a smile. “I don’t know who he’d rather hang out with, honestly. But I think he’d love it if you invited him.”

“Thank you, you’re the best!” She threw her arms around me and then ran for the door. “I have to go call Candy and Grenda!”

“Mabel! You still have to…” I started to call after her, but completed the sentence to an empty room. “…ask your uncle.” Oh boy. I really wished I’d thought to ask Stan for his phone number before now. I wondered if_ he_ knew how obvious the teens found us.

Well, no time like the present. I grabbed my phone from the table, shoved it into my back pocket, and padded out the front door in my bare feet. It must have rained at some point last night while I was out cold—my feet were damp and sporting a few blades of grass by the time I knocked on the door of the next cabin. Mabel answered, and had the temerity to _wink _at me before leading me into the kitchen. Stan was at the table with a folded newspaper and a cup of coffee, not yet dressed for the day. I noticed the scruff on his face was already starting to grow back. And his hair was messy.

“Hey,” I greeted him, pulling out the chair closest to him. “How’s it going?”

“Pretty good, now.” He lifted his eyebrows playfully. “To what do I owe the honor?”

I’d been feeling anxious again, thanks to Mabel, but his welcoming grin relaxed me. “First, before I forget, did you actually agree to letting Mabel and her friends have a sleepover in my cabin, while Nicky and maybe Dave spend the night here?”

“Not yet. But I’m good with it.” He sat up a little straighter, and adjusted his glasses. “What else?”

“Well, Mabel has informed me that it’s ‘obvious—’” I made quotation marks with my fingers. “—that you and I ‘totally like each other’ and are ‘practically dating.’ But it’s okay because she and the others do not find it ‘super gross.’” I spread my hands helplessly. “Also, I think she’s told half the town. So is this news to you, too?”

Stan grimaced. “Kinda? They’re smart kids. They were gonna figure it out.” He moved his hand across the table, resting it on top of mine. It felt nice. Reassuring. “You okay?”

I shrugged, wrapping my fingers around his. “I don’t know. Now I wish we _had_ told them the other night. I don’t want them to think I’m lying to them. I just…” I sighed, holding his hand tighter. “I didn’t know how they’d react. Especially since this is, you know, vacation, and we’ve only been here a week, and I’m already…” My voice was constricting. Tears were going to follow pretty quickly if I didn’t get it together.

Poor Stan. He clearly had no clue what to say, and looked painfully awkward. But he was still holding my hand. That was something. “Uh.”

I rubbed my cheek hard with my free hand, and tried to summon a smile. “I guess now I have to talk to them.”

“Hey, on the plus side, you can stop pretending you don’t like it when I throw you in the lake.”

Somehow, it was exactly the right thing to say. I started laughing. Maybe it was a laugh-so-you-don’t-cry reaction, but it was what I needed. “It also means we can go off on our own without having to make something up.”

“Now you’re talking! What are you doing in, say, half an hour?”

“Trying not to throw up while explaining to my sons that I’m…involved? With our neighbor.” I could already feel the stress transforming into nausea in my stomach. “In an hour, though, I could probably get away. At least, you know. Until this evening. When I’m supervising a pack of teenage girls.”

He ignored all my caveats and concerns. “Okay. I’ll see you in an hour, then. Don’t wear anything you don’t want getting wet.”

“But I don’t want _any _of my clothes to get wet,” I protested.

“Well then the solution is obvious,” he said in a very superior tone.

I had to think about that one. Then I yanked my hand out of his, already fighting the heat of a blush spreading through my face. “There are probably _children _listening!”

“We’re not children! We’re teenagers!” called a voice from the other room.

“Do you think Grunkle Ford has rebuilt the memory gun yet?” another voice added. “I have something I _really need_ to forget.”

I smacked my hand over my eyes. “I’ll, uh, see myself out.” _Dirty old man! _I mouthed to him, punctuating the words with my finger. He sat back in his chair, looking pleased with himself.

I had to walk past the twins to leave the cabin. “I am so sorry,” I hissed, beet red.

The boys were still asleep when I got back, which I was now inclined to view as something of a miracle. I took a few minutes to read my book and compose myself. They were still asleep, so I looked through the clothes I’d brought along for something suitable. I thought he was joking about throwing me in the lake again. I _hoped_ he was joking. I chose a lightweight blouse that wouldn’t be destroyed by water, coupled with a clean pair of cutoffs. I needed to fit a visit to the laundromat into the near future. I also tied my hair back in a simple braid, as a precaution. Cute enough.

Nicky and Dave were still asleep. Ridiculous. I rapped my knuckles tentatively on their door. “Guys?” Nothing. I knocked again. Movement. Bleary-eyed, Nicky pulled the door open. I smiled at him. “Morning, love. Sorry to wake you, but I’m going out for a bit. I didn’t want you to worry.”

He rubbed at his eyes. “You could have left a note.”

I hesitated. “I know. But I wanted to talk with you.”

He stretched, looking like he might crawl back into bed any minute. If I was one of his friends, he’d by wide awake and running out the front door already, damn it! “Me especially, or both of us?”

I peeked around him. An outflung arm and a little bit of hair were all I could see of Dave beneath his blankets. “Both of you, but if he’s really tired…”

“Dave!” Nicky all but shouted, turning toward the bunk. “Dave, wake up! Mom wants to tell us about Stan finally!”

Dave grunted and rolled over.

Good grief, everyone really _did_ know.

“Can we go back to sleep now?” Nicky asked, already leaving the door and heading toward his bed.

“Sure, but…I mean, I felt so bad about you having to figure it out on your own! I should have told you. You’re not upset?”

“Oh, no, I’m upset,” he told me baldly as he crawled back under his covers. “It’s super gross and I’m traumatized. But you know what you always tell us, right Mom?”

I did. “You do you,” I told him with a smile.

“Yep. We’ll see you later. Have fun being gross.”

I bit my lip, so proud of him I thought I might cry. “Okay. Go find the twins when you’re up. Text me if you go anywhere.”

“Yep,” he repeated, pulling the covers up to his ears.

“Love you,” I said, leaving the door open a crack as I left.

That was so much easier than I’d expected, I could barely process it. This was what I’d been so stressed about? This was why I’d been holding myself back? I was an idiot. I should have trusted my boys.

Stan was waiting outside his car when I opened the front door. He’d left the fishing vest behind this time, and he had on a different shirt, but otherwise he was dressed the same as yesterday. We really were going out on the water again, apparently.

“How’d it go?” he asked, opening his door.

I was still shaking my head in wonder. “I’m an idiot. I got myself all worked up about nothing.”

“I could’ve told you that. But you’re not an idiot.”

“Are you sure? I just agreed to go back to the lake with you.”

“Ha!” He looked over at me as I slid into he passenger seat. “We don’t have to go right there.”

“We don’t?” The radio came on, playing Del Starter. I clapped my hands delightedly. “I love this song _too_!”

Stan laughed gently. “We can just stay in the car all morning if you want. But how about we move it out of the way?”

My anxiety might have vanished, but a new type of nervous energy expanded in my chest. We were in the car together. Alone. And as soon as we were away from the kids, he was going to touch me again. Not just my hand, but _touch _me, the way he had the other night, the way I’d stayed awake half that night thinking about. The energy uncoiled itself in my chest, expanding outward. I wiped imagined sweat off my palms. “That sounds like a good idea.”

The song hadn’t even ended when he pulled over onto the shoulder of the road. “Just for a minute,” he explained. “Something I need to get out of my system.”

I unbuckled my seatbelt, sliding my butt along the leather seats until I was right against him. “I’m so glad I’m not the only one.”

This time, he kissed me without my having to ask or initiate anything. I leaned into it, into _him_, letting my hands move over his chest and shoulders. His glasses bumped against my cheek again, and he paused to take them off and set them on the dash. He kissed even harder after that, as if the frames had been holding him back somehow. My hands dug into his shoulders, and I started making small, quick groans of appreciation. _More, _my body begged. _Touch me. More!_

I was still aware it was broad daylight, maybe a mile away from the kids. I knew this was just for a moment, because we both needed it. But this was making me need it _more_, not less. I wondered if Stan, with his dubious criminal history, would bother stopping if I didn’t say anything.

Crap. That thought set of a chain of other thoughts, some of which were far less sexy. “Okay,” I panted, putting a palm flat against his chest. “Okay, stop for a minute. Let’s calm down.”

He wanted to say _no_. I could feel it. But Mabel was right, and so were my instincts. Deep down, he was made of the right stuff. He sat back, breathing heavily and putting his hand over his chest.

“Yeah,” I murmured, “mine, too.”

We sat in silence for a minute. I leaned into his shoulder as we both persuaded our heartrates to return to normal. _I Think We’re On Our Own _came through the radio. I turned it down a little bit. “I can’t just,” I began, and decided to scratch that and try again. “I know where this is going,” I said, turning my head so he could see my face. “I know because my body is pretty much screaming at me to go there as quickly as possible, and I don’t think you’re going to be the one to yell _stop_. But I need to say a couple things before I jump off the deep end, so to speak.”

“Say ‘em.” He moved his hand to my knee, but it didn’t go any higher up.

“I guess they’re more. Um. Questions.” I took a deep breath. “I don’t quite know what this _is_ yet. I mean, the kids are making assumptions, but I’m only here for a few weeks, and…are we _dating_?”

“Course we are!” he answered, looking almost offended. “What do you take me for?”

I ducked my head again, smiling, a bubble of happiness temporarily replacing the ball of desire. “Just wanted to make sure we’re on the same page.”

“What’re the other questions?” he demanded, still gruff.

This one was even more potentially awkward, but it couldn’t really be avoided. “So, yeah, um…how many STDs do you have?” Hoping to lessen the blow, I rushed to explain. “I mean…prison. I won’t judge, but I kind of need to know and _God_ this is awkward and horrible.”

Stan seemed almost as embarrassed as I felt. He stared resolutely out the window. “None that weren’t curable,” he said with what would have sounded like confidence his voice hadn’t cracked on the last word. Belatedly, he cleared his throat.

“And, just to be clear…” I swallowed. “_Have _been cured?”

If I wasn’t mistaken, he was actually blushing, but he also looked amused when he turned back to me. “You know, you’re pretty smart. That _is _the question you oughtta ask. But yes.” His hand moved up my leg a few inches. “Currently clean.”

My face felt hot enough to light a bonfire. I nodded mutely.

“Any more questions, sweetheart?”

“Not at the moment.”

“Good.” He looked like he was about to kiss me again.

I held up a hand to forestall him. “Can we get somewhere a little more secluded?”

“What, like a motel room or something? Fine, but you’re paying.”

I buried my face in my hands. “You’re saying that _just _to make me blush.”

“Uh…yeah.” He sounded doubtful. “Hey! Hey, okay, yeah. I’ve got it.” He started the car back up. “You’re gonna love this.”

I dropped my hands back to my lap. “Where are we going?”

“To the lake. Hold on. You’ll see.”

Since he seemed genuinely excited, I gave him the benefit of the doubt. “When did you get so into fishing, anyway?”

“Since we were kids,” he said, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “We grew up on the beach. Not _this_ one—ha, this one’s actually a lot nicer. But me and Ford, we spent all our summers fishing and swimming and exploring.”

I doubted he realized how adorable it was, the way he automatically switched from _I _to _we _when talking about his childhood. “You were always together, huh?”

One of his shoulders lifted in a shrug. “We weren’t the cool kids on the block, you know? But we had each other. And Ford, he was so smart we did alright most of the time. We were a great team.” A fond smile was tugging at the corners of his lips.

I hadn’t moved fully back to the passenger seat when we started moving again, and I found myself glad I was still this close to him. “So who was older? You?”

He flashed me a 100-watt grin. “I seem like the mature, responsible one?”

I laughed. “I’ve only met _you_. So it’s hard to say.”

“That’s fair.”

“So you’re _not _the oldest?”

His head twitched, a tiny negative answer. “I was the baby of the family, if you wanna get technical. Sherman had a good nine years on us, and Ford beat me by fifteen minutes.”

I gasped faintly. I should have realized he had a twin. I knew they tended to run in families and he’d mentioned his brother multiple times. But it had never occurred to me.

Stan glanced my way, unconcerned as ever about taking his eyes off the road. “You alright there?”

“Fine,” I nodded. “It just never clicked that you were twins. No wonder you were close.”

“For a while, anyway.” He looked straight ahead again, but there was a faraway look in his eyes. “And again now, I guess. Boy though, he drove me _nuts _on the boat sometimes. Always using big words, and everything had to be in the right _order_…on and on sometimes, jeez!”

Aw, he loved him. “You got any pictures?”

“My phone’s in the glovebox. Save it for later though, we’re almost here.”

Sure enough, the lake had come into view between the trees ahead of us. The mention of his phone had reminded me that I didn’t have his number yet, but I barely had time to get it saved in my address book before we were parked and climbing out of the car. It was cloudy today, and despite the later hour some of the morning mist still hung over the water. I could see one other boat in the distance, but it was fairly deserted.

Stan’s boat was where we’d left it the day before. He climbed down first, I passed him the limited supplies he’d pulled out of the trunk, and then he took both my hands to help me down into the boat. Again, my socks immediately sucked up cold lake water. But this time, standing opposite him, my hands still safely in his, it didn’t bother me quite as much.

After a minute of standing there like a couple of dopes, I took a seat and Stan worked on getting the engine started. Like his car, it took a few tries (and in this case, some very romantic strings of swear words and clouds of black smoke) but it got there in the end. The wind was cool and damp on my face as he took us away from the dock, and it wasn’t long before I wished I’d worn something warmer. I rubbed my arms. “Where are we _going_?” I called over the sound of the motor. The cliffs I could see rising out of the mist were certainly scenic, but I didn’t want to run into them. We were more than clear of the dock, and I couldn’t see a single other person at this point. “You’re not going to murder me, are you?” I joked, leaning close to his ear so he could actually hear.

“You said you wanted secluded!” he pointed out, raising his own voice.

I put a hand on his shoulder. “I think this is plenty secluded! You can stop any time!”

“Almost there,” said stubbornly. “Trust me.”

We got closer to what I thought was the shoreline and I realized it was actually a small island. There was a sandy beach but no dock, and everything else seemed to be covered in trees. When we got dangerously close, Stan cut the motor and let us drift. He lifted his eyebrows at me several times, waiting for my approval.

I stared up at the giant pines along the shore. “It sure beats throwing me in the lake.”

He grinned. “So you wanna fish first, or you wanna go up on shore?”

My hormones had by now receded back to more normal levels. “Either is fine by me. Your call.”

“Come here, then,” he said, sitting down on the bench beside me and putting an arm around my shoulders. I was more than happy to wiggle up against him, giving him room to move his arm around my waist instead.

I felt really good. Warm and comfortable. “This is nice,” I told him contentedly. “Tell me more about fishing?”

“That’s really what you want to do right now?” He looked down at me, confused.

I smiled back up. “Yes. I like hearing you talk.”

He obliged, starting off slowly but quickly getting into details and old fishing stories. He told me about going with _his _grandfather, years and years ago, and the boat he and Ford had worked on rebuilding as teenagers, and the fish he’d glued feathers on in the Mystery Shack. I was a good listener. He tried to teach me how to tie some nautical knots, and the best way to secure a line. We didn’t catch anything. That was alright, we weren’t really trying today.

Stan was “trying to show me how to cast properly” when the sun decided to come out from behind the clouds at last. We both knew it was just a flimsy excuse for him to stand behind me with his arms going around me, but I certainly wasn’t going to argue. I _did _suggest that he watched too many romantic movies. He offered to throw me overboard. We wound up kissing.

Maybe it was time to move to shore.

The water was only a few feet deep where we were, so Stan hopped out and pulled the boat up to a safer spot. My shoes were already soaked, so I stepped over the side to help, promptly slipping on a wet rock and cracking my knee on the side of the boat before limping the rest of the way to shore.

“You know you’re bleeding,” he observed as I sat down on the pine-needle strewn ground. “You break anything?”

“Nah.” I _had _sliced myself pretty good, but nothing serious enough to require us heading home. “Just stings. You got any band-aids in that bag you brought along?”

“No,” he answered, sounding disappointed I himself. “I didn’t think we’d need them.”

“Seriously?” I got back to my feet. “I thought you knew me, Stan. You can’t take me _anywhere_ without a pack of band-aids.”

“Hey I’ve taken you several places this week, and this is the first time you started bleeding like something out of a horror flick!”

I laughed and leaned over to dab at the wound with my palm. “It’s not _that _bad. Look, it’s already stopping.” It wasn’t, but my pushing on it sort of covered up that fact.

Stan’s expression clearly said he wasn’t buying any of it, but didn’t really want to head back yet either. “If you say so.”

“I do,” I said firmly. “Let’s go check out these woods. Maybe we can find some more weird toads to bring back.”

He shrugged and walked beside me as I limped into the trees. The blood tickled, and I stopped to wipe it away.

“Ugh, seriously, would you stop?” Stan caught my hand, making a face of disgust. “Here, why don’t we just sit down for a minute. I stuck a blanket in here.” He set his bag down and started to look through it. When he glanced up, he saw me smirking. “What?”

My smirk grew into a full grin. I shrugged carelessly. “It’s just kind of romantic. Bringing me all the way out here. Bringing a blanket so we can sit beneath the trees. I wasn’t expecting that much forethought.”

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t like pine needles sticking into my ass,” he countered, producing a thin blanket and shaking it open. “It’s not romance, sweetheart, it’s common sense. Here, sit down already.”

I did, and went back to pressing the ball of my palm against my cut. Stan watched me, then sighed loudly in exasperation and wrestled his shirt off over his head. As usual, he was wearing a stained undershirt beneath it, and the sight of his bare arms and chest hair had an immediate effect on me. I was letting my eyes dwell on the spot where his gold chain lay against a smattering of gray curls when he shoved the shirt into my hand. “Here. Use it. Good thing I didn’t wear one I like.”

That seemed unlikely to me, but I accepted the shirt anyway. First I wiped away the drying and trickling blood coming from my knee, then wrapped it around and tied it tight just above the joint. “See? I’m fine.”

“You have a funny idea of fine.”

I scooted closer across the blanket. “Maybe that was just my secret ploy to get your shirt off.”

He gave me a crooked smile. “You could have skipped all the blood and just _asked_.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” I winked, and moved right up against him. “It doesn’t bother you that much, does it? The blood?”

“Nah,” he assured me, going still as he realized how close I was. “I bet you can find some way to make me forget about it.”

I put my hand up, feeling the roughness of his cheek against my palm; the five o’clock shadow was already growing back. I made a sound to indicate my approval and moved my hand down to toy with the chain. The air felt almost unbearably heavy around us. Stan swallowed, hard, and I placed my lips against his throat. It was very difficult to decide from there whether I wanted to move my mouth down, or up. Down. I tugged at the hem of his undershirt, coaxing it upward. I could hear his breathing hitch as he took it out of my hands, finishing the job himself and removing his glasses. While he was doing it, I pulled my blouse off over my head. It would have felt strange sitting there in my bra in the middle of the woods, if I’d stopped to think about it.

Instead, I dropped my blouse on the blanket and placed my lips on Stan’s chest, just below the gold chain. There was so much hair. I pressed my hands just below his shoulders, tracing patterns through it with my fingers. I moved my mouth down a few inches, to the area around his heart. Slowly, I pressed my lips there, too. Part of me wanted to do more, but listening to the way he was breathing was driving me insane. I needed to be kissing him right now.

I brought my mouth back up, and as soon as our faces were level he wrapped his arms around my waist and lay back, pulling me down on top of him. I got my knees under me, barely noticing the flash of pain from pressing on the makeshift bandage, and wrapped my arms firmly around the back of his head. His chest rubbed against my stomach, both itching and tickling, and I rocked my hips forward. He moved his hands to my butt, squeezing gently but insistently as I rubbed against him. The friction was already creating some very positive results.

And all the while he was _kissing_ me, hard and deep, intensity bordering on desperation. It should not be legal to be this good at kissing. Then again, this was Stan. It probably _wasn’t_ legal. He slid his hands down the gap at the back of my shorts, and my breath caught in my throat. I loved the heat and roughness of those hands. I wanted to know what they felt like in about a hundred different places. But that would require him moving them from where they were right now and I couldn’t want that yet. Or ever. Not ever stopping would be just fine by me.

I had to quit kissing him because my hips were rolling more enthusiastically, sending the movement all the way into my spine and arching my head backward. His grip on my butt tightened, and I moaned. Loudly.

I clapped a hand over my mouth at once, horrified. Stan cocked one eyebrow at me before running his teeth along the sensitive dip in my collarbone, slowly tugging my hand away from my lips. I moaned again, softer this time, and tipped my head back to give him better access. “Ohmygod,” I murmured, moving my right hand clumsily down to his belt. “You sure—” I was panting now, under power of a barely controllable force. “—no one’s going to hear?”

“Pretty sure.” He kissed my mouth again. “Though not knowing for sure makes it more exciting.”

I sat back on my knees so I could actually see the belt I was fumbling with. He took advantage of the moment to unclip my bra. Holy shit, we were really doing this. My bra slid down my shoulders, and I shook it off the rest of the way. I got his shorts unfastened and let my hand slide down the front, where it automatically wrapped around what it was searching for. My eyes, on the other hand, went up to his face, making sure I hadn’t crossed any unintended lines. It certainly didn’t look like I had. And the way he started running his hands over my breasts half a second later was anything but a complaint.

Saying it felt _good_ was be such an understatement. Saying a hurricane of alternating bliss and desire was tearing me apart was closer. Arching my back, I leaned closer to him, every muscle in my body loudly pleading for more. My focus was breaking up under the force of the winds inside me, but I was still moving my hand slowly up and down the length of him. My other hand opened and closed with no clear motive, grabbing a handful of the blanket beneath us only to release it a moment later.

Another deep moan was brewing in my chest, refusing to be suppressed any longer. I brought both my hands back up so that my mouth could reach his. I kissed him urgently, using it to both muffle the sounds of my excitement and convey how strong this force was.

He went for my shorts after that. Eager to help, I nudged his hands back up to my chest as I undid the button myself. As soon as it was done I rolled over so that I could pull them completely off. Stan completed removing his about a second before I did, and he didn’t wait around for me to roll back over to him. He met me halfway, when I was still on my side, and picked me up by the waist as easily as he’d grabbed me yesterday afternoon. He set me back down, completely naked, on top of him. I didn’t hesitate to shift into a better position—which almost immediately became the _best _position.

My hips bobbed slowly up and down in an unconscious imitation of the waves we’d been on earlier. I leaned forward, bracing my hands against the ground, reveling in the sensations of my bare chest rubbing against his. One of his hands found its way to my hip, pulling me tighter against him and holding me there as _he_ took over the motion. His other hand went to my hair, smoothing it back from my face in a surprising show of tenderness. I was trembling.

His breathing was harsh in my ear. At least one of us was breathing; I didn’t feel like I was, but that was okay, because breathing was way down the list on things that I needed right now. I must have been getting _some_ air, though, or I wouldn’t have had this whispered string of “Yesyesyes” coming out of my mouth. It rose in intensity, and I had to turn my head and bite into my shoulder to avoid crying out loudly.

Both his hands were on my hips now, holding me in place as my control over my body started to slip. This wasn’t a quiet day on the lake, this was a giant tidal wave, prehistoric creatures swimming deep beneath the surface, blinding sunlight flashing off the surface of the water, riptide, unfathomable whirlpools sucking down into blackness, crashing waterfalls, yes yes yes yes yes, oh I’d forgotten how powerful this could be. I didn’t want it to ever stop. No, it was too powerful, I _needed_ it to stop, needed to reach the crest of that wave.

And it was coming, whether I wanted it to or not. I was trembling with the force of it all, but I was not alone in this. I could almost feel the tension coiled inside Stan; the muscles in his legs were tensing beneath me, his hands were clenching and unclenching into my skin, and his breathing now carried faint grunts of approval that I found impossibly erotic.

The wave hit, a spasm of bliss threatening to freeze up all my muscles as it washed over me. I bit harder into my lower lip, dredging up the will to keep moving instead. Doing so prolonged the sensation, dragging a shaky exhalation of profound pleasure out of my lungs. My entire body clenched, and I was only partially aware of the sound Stan made as he pushed into me so deep and hard I _did_ cry out. The sound vanished into the trees around us, as if the leaves themselves were enjoying the profoundness of that shared orgasm.

It felt like a long time before I could speak, though it was probably less than a minute. I stayed on top of him, eyes closed, waiting for my breathing to return to normal and the residual shivers of ecstasy to wear off.

“Don’t look now,” Stan said in almost his normal tone of voice, “but we’ve got an audience.”

My eyes snapped open on the sight of Stan’s face, turned to the left. I turned my head the same direction. His arm was stretched out, groping around for his glasses. A few feet beyond his hand sat a row of about six…squirrels? They were roughly the size and shape of squirrels, but instead of brown fur they were covered in gray fish scales. I stared at them, frozen in place. They stared back. One of them twitched its long finned tail.

I spotted Stan’s glasses just past the reach of his fingers, and detached myself from him so I could grab them. The squirrels flinched as I did it, but they didn’t flee. Wordlessly, I passed his glasses to him. I sat back on my heels, aware that my thighs were pretty slick but also transfixed by the little creatures.

“Stan?” I asked, keeping my voice pitched low. “What _are _those?” I paused. “And more importantly, _why were they watching us_?”

“We’ve never seen a human mating ritual before,” said one of the squirrels shrilly. His little rodent mouth should never have been able to make those sounds, and yet they’d come out in crystal clear English.

I yelped, and fell backward, eyes scanning the ground frantically for my clothes. Weird little squirrel-fish critters seeing me naked was one thing. _Sentient _little squirrel-fish critters watching us get it on was a little different.

“Shoo!” Stan said loudly, sitting up and waving a fist at them. “Get lost, you little perverts!”

“There’s no need to be rude,” snapped one of the other squirrels, twitching its tail irritably. “It was purely intellectual.”

“That’s what _all _the creeps say,” Stan shot back angrily. “You’re freaking the lady out! Now scram!” He got to his feet, completely unphased by his continued nudity, and took a threatening step toward them. They scattered, chittering fiercely.

I’d just finished wiggling back into my underpants while covering my breasts with my left forearm.

“Boy, what a bunch of buzzkills,” Stan remarked irritably, tossing my bra to me. “Sorry about that.”

I gulped. “What…_are _they?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” he shrugged, sitting back down on the blanket beside me. “You okay?”

I was at a complete loss for words. I just wanted to focus on getting my bra clipped back in place.

“Teegs?” He slipped a hand around my waist, pulling me up against his side and looking at me seriously.

What the fuck was I supposed to say? I’d just had sex with my…jeez, boyfriend, I guess? That seemed weird. It had been amazing. I’d also cut myself, I remembered belatedly, and glanced down at my knee. The bandage had shifted out of place at some point, but the bleeding had stopped. That was good. And then I’d had a bunch of creatures that shouldn’t even exist calmly inform me that they’d been watching the whole thing. Not to even _mention _finding out this morning that the kids had seen through all my attempts to conceal my chemistry with Stan. It was so much to process.

I started to laugh. When I risked a glance up at Stan, I saw him smiling nervously, like he didn’t know if I was about to switch to crying. I laughed harder, shaking my head. “I’m glad you didn’t notice them two minutes sooner,” I giggled uncontrollably, covering my mouth with my hand.

There was a beat, and then he laughed loudly. “Yeah, me too.”

My case of the giggles started to subside. I sighed and leaned into him, relaxing. “Thank you for, um, defending my honor? I guess?”

“There’s only one kind of honor I know, sweetie.” He was still smiling.

“Get honor and stay honor?” I guessed, winking.

“Mm-hm.” He kissed me. Technically it was a fairly chaste kiss compared to some previous ones, but he managed to make it feel deliciously dirty. I melted into it.

“You are amazing,” I told him when we broke the kiss.

He gave me a broad, perfect conman smile. “I know!”

I stared to laugh again, but softly—more with pleasure and surprise than from anything actually being funny. “No, really. That…that was fantastic. Can I just have sex with you forever? Please?”

I hadn’t known it was possible for him to look any more pleased with himself, but he managed it. “Fine by me.”

I reflected on my request. “Though maybe let’s not start right this minute? Those things might come back.”

He nodded. “They’re probably watching from the trees right now.”

“You know, what’s really horrifying is that part of me wants to say ‘then let’s really give them something to watch.’”

Stan clapped me on the back. “I _like _you!”

I lifted my eyebrows coyly. “You didn’t before?”

“Ha ha ha,” he retorted.

“Oh shit!” I snapped my head around, looking for some sign of the squirrels. “We should have caught one! To bring home.”

That got me a very patronizing stare from Stan. “Even if we _could_ catch one of those things, they’re creeps. You really want to bring one home and let it have a chat with your kids?”

Yes, let’s bring home the creature that can talk and just watched me getting nailed by Stan. That was a genius move. I grinned at him. “I dunno. It _would _be pretty funny.”

“Yeah,” he snorted, imagining it. “Damn, I kind of want to now.”

“You’re terrible!” I laughed, shoving him gently.

He grabbed me, pulling me down after him. “You weren’t complaining ten minutes ago.”

I wriggled up against his chest happily. “I’m not complaining now, either.”

Stan yawned. “You were pretty amazing too, you know.”

I planted my lips affectionately on his chest. “Yeah. I know.”

* * *

It was a good thing we didn’t head back immediately, because if I had I think I would have been a little _too _obvious. The resident teenagers might be willing to (reluctantly) accept the reality that their respective guardians liked each other “that way,” but I highly doubted they wanted to see the goofy, flirty, touchy-feely reality of it. I was quite sure that if Nicky and Dipper never had to see us kissing, it would still be too soon. It was conspicuous enough that we were coming home minus Stan’s t-shirt and plus a notable gash along my knee. At least we’d managed to dust most of the pine needles out of his hair.

It did take a few hours for the post-sex high to die down so that I wasn’t making bedroom eyes at Stan every few minutes and he wasn’t constantly whistling cheerful tunes or winking at me. Luckily, between pillow-talk in the woods, boating back to the mainland, buying supplies for dinner, picking up Mabel’s friends, and getting back to the cabins, we were acting almost normal by the time we got back.

By the time I finished cooking dinner with Mabel, Candy, and Grenda, I thought I had calmed down pretty thoroughly. Dave decided that he’d rather be in a sleeping bag on the floor of his own room, dishing over cute guys or taking quizzes in _TEEN_ magazine or giving each other make-overs, than spend any more of his day “doing math and playing pretend” with Dipper and Nicky. As soon as the table was cleared, Stan and the younger boys were practically shoved out of our cabin; I barely even had a chance to tell him goodnight.

Luckily, my crowd of teens was inclined to distract me from the separation. Dave didn’t even object when Mabel invited me to join them all in watching some trite, poorly acted movie about high school. I was overjoyed at being included by my son and his friends, and happy that I got to see him giggling and enjoying himself. We made brownies before the movie, then sat around eating them in the living room and talking through the movie. I was hardly even thinking about how it felt to have Stan’s arms wrap around the small of my back.

And yet around the time the heroine and her best friend got in a dramatic and unnecessary fight, Grenda looked over and said “Um, Dave? Is your mom…glowing?”

I cringed, mentally castigating her for bringing it up. Once again, I was clearly not playing it as cool as I thought I was, but I really didn’t want to discuss the details.

“Ooooh, really?” Mabel asked excitedly, ripping her eyes away from the screen and turning her attention to me. “Are you in lo…” Her words faded. Suddenly I found all four of them staring at me in what I could only describe as awe.

Oh, come on. It couldn’t be _that _obvious I’d gotten laid earlier! The lights weren’t even on in the living room, they’d only be seeing me by the glow of the TV. I put a hand to my cheek, feeling for a telltale blush, and in the process I caught sight of my hand. It seemed like it was reflecting the glow from the TV screen.

Or not.

That was…hm.

“No, seriously, Mom, you’re _glowing,_” Dave said, sounding worried rather than awed.

I held my hands up in front of my face. They’d looked perfectly normal earlier! This must just be some trick of the light from the TV. Some other weird Gravity Falls thing.

Yeah, I wished I could believe that. I got up, going into the bathroom and flipping the light on to stare at myself in the mirror. Oh, thank goodness. I looked normal. It _had _just been from the TV. But just to be sure, I flipped the light back off.

I lit up like a glo-stick. It wasn’t just my hands—every inch of skin that I could see in my reflection was giving off a slight but definite yellow-green glow. Just like the stars Nicky had on his ceiling at home. Just like the toads Stan and I had found the other night along the road.

“Whoa,” Mabel said. I could see all of them crowded in the doorway of the bathroom. I was giving off enough light that I could read the shocked dismay on Dave’s face.

“So, hey, um…that happened,” I said, looking at myself with a similar expression. “I don’t suppose this is something that happens to everyone while they’re in Gravity Falls?”

“No, why?” Candy inquired. “Have you been glowing since you got here?”

“I…I don’t think so?” I would have noticed, surely. Then again, I didn’t often look at myself once the lights were off, and I didn’t usually hang out in the dark, either. But I had here, I remembered—the sun had set when I’d gone on that walk with Stan, and he’d seen me when I tried to steal his car the night before. Even if I was too oblivious to notice myself glowing, _he _would have said something. I shook my head more firmly. “It must be new. It must have started in the past day or two.”

Again, I thought about the toads we’d found on that walk. “Mabel? What do Mr. and Mrs. Starsparkle look like during the day?”

Her eyes lit up. “Like normal toads! Should I go get them?”

I considered it, but wound up dismissing the idea. “No, I don’t want to disturb whatever the guys are doing. Let’s give it a day. You can show me tomorrow, and we’ll wait and see if I light up tomorrow night too.” I wanted to reassure them, even though I was screaming internally, so I winked. “Maybe it’s just the full moon!”

“You feel okay though, right?” Dave asked, not ready to let it go.

“I don’t know,” I smiled slyly at him. “I feel a little strange. Like I might…turn into a werewolf!”

He rolled his eyes at my dorkiness, but he also seemed to relax. At any rate, I was able to convince them to all go back and enjoy the movie. I sat with them, trying to focus on the movie and laugh with my son. I almost succeeded, too.

But when bedtime finally came around (for me, anyway—the kids were showing no signs of fatigue) I had a difficult time turning off the light. And it wasn’t the dark I was afraid of. I lay in bed with the light on so that I wouldn’t see that sickly yellow-green hue all around me, wondering how I had ever thought those toads were fascinating.

I didn’t sleep well again. Part of me had wanted to sneak outside, throw pebbles at Stan’s window like a child, and crawl under his covers beside him. He could have done some things that would take my mind off my predicament. Failing that, I would still have had the comfort of dozing off next to someone warm who seemed to care about me. But I stayed in my own fully lit bedroom, staring at the ceiling and listening to the happy giggles and whispers of a sleepover.

Because despite the way he scared off scaled squirrels and talked about fending off chaos demons who wanted to end the world, there was still the chance that he would not be that into a woman who _glowed in the dark_. Maybe I could handle that in the morning, but in the middle of the night with the shock still fresh, the idea that I’d go to him for comfort and have him get weird was an unacceptable risk. Things were _just _getting to a place that kind of made sense. I wasn’t in love like Mabel seemed to think, but I was certainly enjoying myself. I trusted him, we were having fun, I didn’t have to lie to my kids about it…and he’d said we were _dating_, which still felt strange to me. I didn’t want to throw in a surprise “hey I never need a flashlight” right at this juncture.

He’d lived in Gravity Falls for decades. He’d been the first one to tell me this place was weird. He wasn’t going to get scared off by a little bioluminescence, especially if he was already fine with half the town jumping to conclusions about us.

Intellectually, I knew that. It just didn’t help me _believe_ it.


	7. Day Nine of Vacation

By 9:30 the next morning, all four of my charges were still snoring away in the bedroom. I’d gotten sick of my fitful sleep and gotten up before eight, but I didn’t want to make too much noise or go too far. After texting Nicky and getting no response, I decided I didn’t need to play it all that cool anymore and put the phone number I’d acquired yesterday to good use.

_Morning_, I texted. _Everyone else is still asleep here. Been tiptoeing around for hours. Do you know if they had any plans for today? Or did you?_

A few minutes passed before my phone chirped at me in response. _Come outside. I’ve got coffee._

I didn’t need telling twice.

Since I literally went out the front door a second after reading the text, I wound up sitting on the front step for a few minutes. It wasn’t long, though, before I saw Stan come out of his cabin, carrying the same large thermos he’d used the other day. He gestured me toward the car, and we met up a few paces from the hood.

“Figured this made more sense than sitting around trying not to make any noise in there,” he greeted me.

“Hello, baby,” I greeted the car, running a hand along the smooth paint of the hood. Then I looked up at Stan with a mischievous grin. “Good idea.”

He opened the driver’s side door. I pretended he’d done it for me, and slid through before he had a chance to stick his butt on it. I did, however, keep moving until I was in the middle of the long bench seat. He sat down, shut the door, and turned on the radio without saying anything. Upon closer inspection, he looked tired today. Nice, in a way, to know I wasn’t alone.

Stan opened the thermos in silence and took a swig off it before wordlessly handing it to me. This struck me as a perfect parody of two exhausted soldiers sharing a flask of alcohol, and I smiled at the image. “Rough night for you, too?” I asked before taking a small sip. The bitter thickness of the drink coated my tongue, and I felt the caffeine buzzing into my head. I made a small noise of satisfaction and took another sip.

“They wanted a third player. I figured I could be nice this one time, right? While they’re still young enough to ask.” I passed him the thermos back, and he took a long drink from it. “I survived it once _last _summer. How bad could it be?”

He looked at me bleakly, eyes saying that it had absolutely been that bad.

“Oh, poor baby.” I patted his arm in mock sympathy. “Next time we can trade. I’ll spend hours rolling dice and playing pretend, and you can watch _High School High _and listen to shrieks and giggles till three in the morning.”

“I’m holding you to that.” Good grief, he actually thought that sounded _better_? “I miss living at the Shack. Their room was upstairs. Even when Mabel had the girls over, I couldn’t hear a thing.”

“That sounds wonderful.” I took the coffee back out of his hands, snuggling up against his shoulder as I drank more. “What’s Soos doing with it now? Does he use the whole house?”

“No, but his grandma lives there with him.” He sounded displeased just by the thought. “She’s wrecked it. Doilies and flowers all over now. I’ve crashed with them before when things were rough and trust me, it’s not how I want to spend my summer.”

I smiled. “Yeah, doilies and flowers really do not seem like your style.” After one more sip, I handed the coffee back to him. “So are there any plans for when they wake up? Assuming that’s any time before dinner?”

“I was gonna go into the Shack for a while.” He shot a glance at me—not looking for approval, exactly, but interested in my reaction. “Soos needs some mentoring in how to run a business. He keeps _paying _for stuff!”

I coughed politely into my hand, trying to cover up my amusement. He just sounded so scandalized! “I’m fairly sure that’s how businesses work.”

“That’s how _chumps_ work,” he corrected me. The coffee must be doing its job; he sounded more alert and confident already.

“That sounds very magnanimous of you, spending your day helping out aspiring businessmen,” I teased. “But you still owe me a tour of the town. I know there’s more here than bowling and fishing.”

“So come back to the Shack with us! I’ll give you a _real _tour this time. Take you through the whole place.”

That didn’t sound too bad, actually. He and the twins talked about Soos so much in their stories, I wanted to get to know him a bit. “Sure. You think the kids would want to invite him back for dinner, too?”

“Probably.”

There was a natural lull in the conversation, and I made myself take advantage of it. “Last night I was…” I dropped the sentence and started over. “You remember the toads?”

“Hey I’m old but I’m not senile!”

Ordinarily I would have laughed at that, but just thinking about the weirdness last night put a knot in my stomach. “And how they glowed?” I prompted.

“Yeah, why?”

“I do that now, too,” I said simply, and waited.

Stan stared at me blankly for a minute. “You glow? You’re not glowing right now.”

I fidgeted. “It’s daylight right now.”

“So what, you glow at night?”

“I guess so? We had the lights off last night when we were watching that awful movie, and they were all staring at me.”

“That’s new,” he said, seemingly unimpressed. “You weren’t glowing the other night.”

“Exactly!” I exclaimed, and took the thermos again for another sip. “I don’t know if it’s permanent or a fluke or what. It was just…_weird_. Has it ever happened to you?”

I knew the answer was no before he even opened his mouth, and yet hearing him say it was frightening.

“Come on! You’ve lived here _how _long? And your brother and Dipper studied all those strange things? And you’ve never met anyone who glowed in the dark?”

He eyed me thoughtfully, tapping his finger on the steering wheel. “Nope. But now I have to see it.”

“This doesn’t make _sense_,” I wailed. “I’m not from here! I’ve barely been here a week! Okay, almost two. But you said you’re not supposed to really talk about this stuff with tourists, right? I think that’d be pretty fucking hard to avoid if people come here and start fucking _glowing_!”

“Okay, okay, calm down.” Stan put a quelling hand on my knee. “Like I said, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t happen to everyone that comes through town. Look, I don’t want to be _that guy_, but are you sure you didn’t just imagine it?”

I glared at him. “Fuck you, Stan.”

He actually looked wounded, and I felt a little bad for snapping at him. It wasn’t _his _fault this was happening. At least, I didn’t think it was. It was hard to know anything for sure.

I sighed. “Sorry. I just…I don’t think I imagined it. If I did, it was a group hallucination. You can ask Mabel and Dave when they wake up. And if it wasn’t a fluke, if it doesn’t go away, that really screws up my life. How am I supposed to go to the movies once I’m back home? Or run out for groceries at night? Or chaperone a school dance?”

“I’d think it’d be easier,” Stan joked.

It was tempting to glare at him again. Instead, I sighed. “Not in the normal world. I don’t really want to wind up as some asshole’s science project.”

“Just tell them you’re on your way to a rave and put on a bunch of body paint.”

I stared up at the ceiling of the car miserably. “Could you not? I’m stressed out here.”

“What do you _want _me to say?” he demanded gruffly.

Fair point. I continued fidgeting. “That it’s totally not weird and you have a solution?”

“So you want me to lie to you? Okay, totally not weird, sweetie.”

“Still not helping.”

He shrugged. “You’re asking the wrong guy, then. I think it sounds pretty cool. Hot, even.” He winked down at me. And weirdly, I did start to relax a little. “I’m not the scientist, though. Only thing I can do is tell you is I want to see it.”

“You just want to see me in the dark.” I began to smile. “And find out if I really glow _everywhere_.”

“So what if I do?”

“See, _now _I’m liking what you have to say.” His hand had moved up my leg, from calming to exciting. I leaned in closer, at the same time nudging his hand further up.

“Wanna just make out in the car like teenagers, then?”

“Yes please.”

* * *

Combined with the coffee, making out turned out to be a pretty effective way of waking ourselves up for the day. The trade off was feeling very hot and bothered by the time we stopped ourselves, but at least I was feeling energized and upbeat again. In the light of day, it was almost possible to forget I had anything to worry about beyond normal relationship challenges.

When everyone was finally up, there was a lot of juggling to do. Mabel had to tell everyone about my “condition” and go examine the toads. Candy’s father came to collect her and Grenda. Dipper got a text from Wendy that she and her friends were at the local diner, and asked if we could go join them. Dave wanted breakfast but wasn’t big on spending the afternoon at the Mystery Shack until Dipper told him about a spot where he could just hide on the roof and play guitar. Nicky really, _really_ wanted to invite everyone over for tacos tonight and wouldn’t shut up about it. And so on.

I did make time to look at the toads before we went out for brunch. They were sitting in the same Tupperware container, but one of the twins (probably Dipper) had punched air holes in the lid and covered the bottom with dirt and leaves. Someone had even taken then time to catch a few crickets; I could see one wiggling its antennae in the corner. One toad was bigger than the other by a fair margin. They were both brown and bumpy. They looked like every other toad I’d ever seen.

“Do they do anything unusual?” I asked Dipper, who was watching anxiously as I examined his science project.

“Not so far.” He opened up a notebook, flipping it to a page with an amateur sketch of a toad. There was a list of numbers and attributes alongside it. He passed it to me to study and opened the container. He scooped up a toad.

“I notice you don’t mention their names in here,” I remarked with a smile, glancing over the measurements and specific notes regarding the location they’d been found.

Dipper sighed loudly. “Their names are Specimen One and Specimen Two.”

Personally, I thought Mr. and Mrs. Starsparkle was a lot more fun. “So which one’s that?”

“Specimen Two. Huh.” The toad was sitting calmly, shielded between his two cupped hands, but he held it up to study it more closely. “It seems warm.”

“Warm?” I wrinkled my brow. “It has a fever?”

“No…I don’t think so…can toads even get fevers?” I shrugged, but it seemed to have been a rhetorical question anyway. “They’re cold-blooded, and usually when I pick them up they’re pretty cool to the touch. But right now it feels warmer than my hand.”

“It’s been inside for a few days,” I pointed out uneasily. “Maybe it’s adjusting. Or what time do you usually study them? It’s pretty hot outside right now.”

“Good point,” he said with a satisfied nod, and set the toad back in its home. “The sun _does _come through the window in here in the morning. I’d better make a note of it though, before we head out. Will you tell Stan to hold the car?”

I smiled and set the notebook down on his dresser. “I don’t think we’re going to leave without you.”

Brunch was a mixed bag. On the one hand, the pancakes there were amazing and the kids were able to find their friends. On the other hand, Dave was trying much harder to be “cool” around this group of older teens, and it was a little depressing to watch after seeing him let his guard down so much lately. And on the third hand—because why not, in this town—several of the locals cast knowing glances toward Stan and I, muttering things which were pretty easy to guess at. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this.

Stan, on the other hand, seemed to be enjoying it immensely. In fact, he seemed to be going out of his way to give everyone something to talk about. He deliberately put his arm over the back of the booth just where it would graze my shoulders. He whispered things in my ear that would have _traumatized _the kids if they’d overheard. When my hand was lying on the table, he covered it with his. I would have shut him down, but the trouble was that I _liked_ all these things.

“Not that I’m complaining,” I murmured after he tucked a lock of hair behind my ear for me before rather blatantly letting his hand linger, “but I think everyone’s taken the hint already.”

“What hint?” He tried to look innocent. I snorted in amusement; he did a very bad job.

I rolled my eyes. “You’re getting a little handsy there. You really want the whole town knowing your personal business?”

He shrugged. “They’re gonna talk no matter what I do. Might as well have some fun with it.”

“It just feels a little over the top.”

“What, I’m supposed to pretend I don’t like people knowing a girl that looks like you can’t keep her hands off me?”

“Oh, so I’m a trophy, I get it.”

“It was a compliment!” He nudged me. “Don’t worry, I like you for more than your looks.”

“And luckily I like you for more than your flattery skills,” I threw back, grinning. And then, because I _did _like him, I went ahead and kissed him on his scruffy cheek. (Mabel gasped rapturously. Nicky made gagging sounds. Dave and Dipper were both off with Wendy and some others I vaguely recognized, and so thankfully missed it.)

It took a while to haul the kids away from their friends, but eventually we made it to the Mystery Shack. The place was still enjoying its lunchtime lull, which meant Soos rushed out from behind the register to greet us. “Dudes! You came back!” He didn’t hesitate to pull the twins into a giant hug (in which he attempted to include Stan, but did not succeed) and give Nicky a high-five. He was slightly more reserved with me and Dave, but that was still a long way from inhibited. “I heard you’re, like, neighbors now? I guess that worked out pretty good then. Abuelita said we should let Stan and the kids stay here, and I totally would have been down with sharing my room, but Stan said he didn’t want to impose. Whoa, is that a guitar?”

“Hey, uh, Soos.” Stan finally managed to get a word in. “I was gonna show Teegs and the kids around the place. Where’s your grandma at?”

“I think she’s in the TV room. You know the one.”

“And where’s Melody?” Mabel asked, giving him a cheeky wink.

“Oh, she’s been working part time at the mall again, so she’s not in yet.”

“Great, so we’ll just avoid the living room. Thanks, Soos!” Stan jerked his head for us to follow. The twins seemed excited to join us at first, but almost immediately ran off to show Dave their secret hangout on the roof. While they were doing that, Stan showed me around the back part of the Shack, where he’d spent the bulk of his adult life. We just peeked into the living room, but he spent several minutes complaining in disgust about how it had been redecorated. He led me past a bathroom, a kitchen that smelled strongly of cumin, and a bedroom. I asked if this had been his, which got a look from him that nearly made my knees go weak, but given it now obviously belonged to Soos’ grandma we didn’t take too many liberties in there.

Just a few. Hardly any, really.

Stan was a terrible influence on me.

After that he showed me the twins’ old room, which now clearly belonged to Soos himself—though there were also enough feminine items lying around to convince me that Melody might not work at the Shack full time, but she certainly lived there. The kids rejoined us at that point, the twins marveling at how different it looked, and the tour moved to the more secret parts of the building. I hadn’t even known there was a basement, but the boys and I were led into a giant underground laboratory. I wondered why Stan and the kids hadn’t just spent the summer living _here_. There was certainly enough space. But then again, the only way out was through someone else’s home, it was chilly, and there were no windows. Maybe it wasn’t such a strange choice.

We’d already heard about this place, to some extent, during our fishing trip the other day when the Pines had tried to explain all the exciting events of the previous summer. This had been Ford’s laboratory, used to construct some sort of interdimensional portal, until he got sucked into it. Stan had spent the following decades trying to figure out how to get his brother back. For years and years, he’d been the only one to know about it, and he’d spent all his free time down here trying to fix it. It struck me as very lonely, profoundly depressing, and incredibly sweet.

Eventually we went back up to the main floor again. There were a few tourists checking out the gift shop, and Soos was preparing to give a tour. Stan offered to do it instead, swearing he could talk them into spending more money. “Here, take your hat off and pretend you’re a tourist, too. You guys, too.” He motioned to me and the kids. “See? This tour is packed. We can’t afford to wait for anyone else. And you all want to buy things.”

“So I’m a plant?” I asked, amused.

“You’re a tourist,” he repeated firmly. “One who wants to spend a lot of money.”

“So definitely not the tour guide’s girlfriend, then.”

“What, you think you can’t control yourself for half an hour? I know, I’m irresistible. But I believe in you.” He smacked me heartily on the back.

“Grunkle Stan, please stop,” said Dipper faintly.

Stan laughed loudly. “Come on, you knuckleheads. Tour’s starting. Watch the pro.”

I had enjoyed my first tour at the Mystery Shack. Soos had been an entertaining and exuberant tour guide. But Stan _was _better. I already knew him, and knew how fake most of the stuff in the Shack was, and he still had me alternately laughing and excited by the ridiculous exhibits. He was utterly charming, and I suspected that if I’d met him in this capacity, I would have instantly found him attractive….not that it had taken me long anyway.

Obediently, the boys and I loudly admired multiple items in the gift shop at the end of the tour. I got in line laden with postcards, shirts, books, and an obnoxious singing fish. Then I pretended to pay Stan for it before herding all four kids out to the Stanmobile. Where we sat, pretending to pour over our loot, until the genuine tourists left. I noticed they did have several bags of merchandise, but had no idea whether or not that was any thanks to our charade.

Still, when we brought the crap back inside Stan swept me into his arms, twirling me around. This was a bad move, given my profound lack of grace, but luckily when I tripped he caught me before I hit the floor. “Nice job,” he told us collectively, informing Dipper and Mabel that they “might make me proud yet.” I told him how enjoyable the tour had been. Dave asked if we could leave now, and as a result the Kettle family wound up eating cookies with Soos’ abuelita for forty-five minutes while the Pines talked business strategy with her grandson. I wasn’t quite sure why Dipper and Mabel got to be in on that one, but they clearly had a rapport with Soos.

We left with enough time to grab supplies for pizza—tonight, when Soos and Melody were joining us—and tacos for tomorrow, when the kids got to invite every teenager they wanted. It was going to be a _lot _of tacos. Most of my vacation funds were going to groceries. But I actually felt appreciated for everything I was doing, which was more than a fair trade in my book.

In fact, I was having a wonderful time. My kids were happy, and had friends I approved of. I was seeing a guy who made me laugh and kissed me every chance he got. I got to cook my favorite dishes for people, and the scenery was beautiful. Soos and Melody were adorable, though perhaps a little immature to be running a “business.” By the time we finished dessert I was exhausted, but content enough that I’d forgotten it was because I’d barely slept the previous night. For the time being, all thoughts of toads and glo-sticks and weirdness had been completely pushed out of my mind.

Then I watched the sun going down as Soos’ red truck took off down the road, and it came flooding back. I glanced over at Stan. “Can you tell?” I asked quietly, slipping my hand into his.

“Tell what?” he said reflexively before turning and giving me his attention. He studied me seriously. “Oh, right.”

The kids weren’t thinking about it right now, either. As soon as they finished waving to the retreating truck, they ran over to the Pines’ cabin in pursuit of some activity. Good. “Oh, right?” I asked. “Can you expand on that?”

“I can kinda see?” Stan ventured, taking my hand and bringing it up close to his face. “It’s not much. I guess you look a little yellow. Don’t see what the big fuss is about.”

We were standing on a lit porch before full sundown. The fact that it was showing at all was, if anything, concerning. “Come on,” I told him, pulling him along with me as I went back into my cabin. I brought him into my bedroom, which had the lights off and the curtains drawn. I shut the door.

“You know the kids could come back at any—whoa.” He stopped speaking. I’d walked into the middle of the room, where it was darkest, but now I stepped back toward him fretfully. “Yeah, I see what you mean.”

I nodded, having no doubt that he’d see it. I was so glad I’d slept with the light on the night before. It was even darker in here with the door shut than it had been in the bathroom yesterday. And apparently the darker it got, the brighter I glowed. I put a hand flat against Stan’s chest, nervously looking up at him.

“Holy mackerel, you’re a _freak_,” he exclaimed, putting his hands on my shoulders so he could hold me at arms’ length and get a good eyeful. “This is great! You know how much money you could make? Do you want a job at the Shack?”

So that was…not the reaction I’d been expecting, though in retrospect it should have been. “I don’t want to work in a freak show! I’m an elementary school secretary! I want to go home! I want to be normal!”

“Right. Right.” He contained his disappointment fairly well, I’ll give him that. He also put his arm around my shoulder and walked me over to sit down on the edge of my bed together. “It’s just…you’re like a human firefly. It’s amazing.”

“Are you about to ask whether my butt flashes on and off?” I suggested. “Because you’re welcome to check.”

He laughed. “Later.” Then he did something completely unexpected, and pulled me into a hug. “You’re already pretty nice to look at,” he said softly into my ear. “So now you glow on top of it, so what. Sounds like a selling point to me.”

I took a long, shaky breath, then tipped my chin up in the hopes that he’d kiss me. “You make me feel better,” I told him in a whisper. “Thanks.”

In the light of my skin, I could see both his pleased grin and the restrained pain in his eyes. “That might be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me. At least, since we were little.” He started to kiss me. Our lips actually brushed. And then he sat back up straight. “Ford!”

I cocked my head to the side, brows pulling down.

“Ford,” he reiterated with pride. “He’s the genius. He knows Gravity Falls. I’ll call him up tomorrow, and he’ll get you straightened back out. If that’s what you really want.”

My face lit up…well, lit up figuratively as well as literally...at his words. “Really? _Thank_ you!” I lifted myself enough to plant one squarely on his lips.

“I should’ve thought of it in the first place,” he muttered, but his face reflected my own relief.

“Thank you,” I repeated, kissing him again. I did it slower this time, with a lot more desire than relief. A lot more tongue, too.

“Thank me later,” he told me between kisses. “When you’re showing me your flashing butt.”


	8. Day Ten of Vacation

“Here, I’ll put it on speakerphone,” Stan offered, giving his phone an additional poke.

I shook my head and waved my hands in an X as the call connected. The ringing sounded loud and tinny in the kitchen of Stan’s cabin. I _hated_ speakerphone, and I was bad enough talking on the phone to people I already knew.

“Don’t worry,” he said, understanding my motions correctly. “You don’t have to say anything. I won’t even tell him he’s on speaker.”

I relaxed back into my seat and picked my coffee mug back up in both hands.

The ringing stopped. “Stanley?” said a smooth, deep voice that sounded very little like Stan.

“Hey Ford! How you doing?”

“Very well. The project may finish more quickly than we initially thought.” There was just a hint of prissiness to the voice, too, I decided. There was also genuine pleasure at hearing from Stan, which I approved of. “Am I on speakerphone?”

“Uh…yeah. I’m making the kids breakfast.”

“Oh dear. But why are you calling so _early_?”

“It’s ten o’clock, genius.”

“Ah, you’ve adjusted back to Pacific time. I’m glad to hear it. I trust Dipper and Mabel are still well?”

Stan rolled his eyes at me, gesturing to the phone in a silent _Can you believe this guy?_ “Yeah, yeah, they’re great. I’ve just got a quick—”

“Excellent. I can’t wait to see you all again. However, I was just on my way to a breakfast meeting with the official who’s been sponsoring my project, and I think it best if—”

“Oh no, you’re not brushing me off that easy! I called because I have a question. Can you take two minutes to answer a question, Poindexter?”

Ford’s voice sounded almost apologetic. “Of course. Some sort of anomaly you’ve discovered?”

“You could say that.” Stan hesitated for only a moment. I beamed at him. “My girlfriend’s, uh…glowing. Do you have any idea wh—”

Again, Ford cut him off. “Glowing is hardly an urgent problem! That sounds entirely plausible and mundane compared to the things I’ve…did you say your _girlfriend_?”

“Yeah, I did.” Even though his brother couldn’t see him, Stan’s chin lifted almost defiantly.

There was a pause.

“Let me call you back,” said Ford. The call ended.

We both stared at the phone. Dipper walked into the kitchen, headed for the fridge. “Was that Grunkle Ford?”

“Yeah.” Stan scratched the back of his neck. “He hung up on me.”

“He didn’t sound mad,” Dipper observed as he grabbed a box of cereal, betraying that he’d been listening in. “He said he’d call you back. Morning, Teagan. Is Nicky up yet?”

“Yes, and already playing video games,” I told him. “You can go over any time you like.”

“Okay.” He closed the cereal box and put it back. “Stan, Mabel’s setting up her radio show with Waddles again. Can you stop her? _Please_?”

“Kid, when have I ever been able to stop your sister doing anything? Or you, for that matter?”

Dipper didn’t have an answer for that one, settling for just looking frustrated as he poured his milk.

“So that was Ford, huh?” I said into the silence that followed.

“He’s better when you get him in person,” Stan assured me, ignoring the fact that I might be back in Michigan before his twin arrived here. Then again, if his mystery government project finished up early, maybe not. Or if he decided he wanted to see the latest “anomaly” in person. I didn’t like that idea, but I knew Stan trusted his brother. And I trusted Stan.

The phone rang. Stan answered it and hit speakerphone again. “That was rude.”

“Yes, well. I needed to call my contact and inform him I was going to be late to our meeting. Now start at the beginning. How did _you_ get a _girlfriend_?”

Stan made a face. “You don’t have to say it like that. As a matter of fact, she thinks I’m charming. Don’t you, Teegs?”

I gave him a look of ultimate betrayal. “You told me I wouldn’t have to say anything!”

“Ah,” said Ford. “Yes, now the use of speakerphone makes sense. Do I dare assume you’re not really cooking?”

“We’re safe, Grunkle Ford,” Dipper piped up. “I’m eating cereal.”

“Good. Hello, Dipper. Hello…er…?”

I sighed. “Teagan. Hi, Ford. I’ve heard a lot about you. And yeah, Stan’s very charming.”

“I suppose he can be,” Ford agreed hesitantly. “Stanley, perhaps you can tell me the whole story?”

“You’re not _that_ far out of the loop,” Stan assured him. “It’s only been a few days.”

_A week_, I mouthed at him. He smirked.

“That’s reassuring, I suppose. Go on?”

“We’re neighbors,” I said, figuring this might go faster if I was part of the conversation. “I’m renting the cabin next to Stan. My kids are about the same age as Mabel and Dipper, so we started spending time together by default. And, well…” I spread my hands helplessly, more for Stan’s benefit than Ford’s. “He’s very charming.”

“She’s funny,” Stan told him, flashing me a smile. “And _she_ can cook. Also she’s super hot.”

“Hm,” said Ford. I didn’t get the impression that he didn’t believe Stan so much as this was just way out of his comfort zone.

“If we could get back to my problem, though?” I asked plaintively.

“Of course.” Ford’s voice took on a tone of efficiency again. “Stanley said you were glowing?”

“Yes,” I affirmed, nodding. “In the dark. I look like a glo-stick on legs.”

“Glow-stick?” Ford repeated doubtfully.

“They’re these things kids use at Halloween and ballgames, genius,” Stan cut back in. “She looks totally normal in daylight, but in the dark she looks like a firefly that can’t turn off. You know that yellow color they have?”

“Ah, bioluminescence,” his brother responded with interest. “How bright is it?”

“Uh, bright?” Stan looked to me.

“The glow extends a few feet out from me,” I attempted to clarify.

“Interesting. How long has this been going on?”

“Only two days.”

“And have you done anything unusual recently?”

I exchanged looks with Stan. I could think of lots of things I’d done recently that were unusual for me, but I didn’t think most of them were what Ford wanted to hear about. “Not really? Just coming to Gravity Falls. But we _did _find these toads that also glow.”

“Ah yes, the Gloads. I discovered them very early on. Mundane, as far as anomalies go.”

“Riiiiight,” I said, recovering from the interruption. “Anyway, I don’t know what the connection is. It can’t be a contagion, can it? I’m the only one glowing, but I’m not the only one who touched them.”

“It’s not outside the realm of possibility,” Ford answered thoughtfully, “but unlikely. Did you think to get any specimens?”

“I did!” Dipper said excitedly. “I’ve got two of them in my room. I’ve been observing them and recording all the data.”

“Excellent!” Ford told him. “Good man. There must be more to them than I initially thought, to cause this sort of reaction. Fascinating. Why don’t you send me all the relevant data, and I’ll take a look.”

“I can do that,” Dipper answered proudly.

“You remember how to check your e-mail, genius?” Stan asked. I suspected he was teasing.

Now Ford sighed. “Yes. If I could construct an interdimensional portal and adapt alien and supernatural technologies for my own use, I’m fairly sure I can remember how to check my e-mail.”

“Then why don’t you write me back once in a while?” Stan demanded, clearly teasing.

“I can’t get past all the terrible grammar,” Ford told him. It sounded like he was smiling. “I really do need to get going. Dipper, send me that data. I’ll do some research later today and see what might have caused the bioluminescence. Teagan, nice talking with you. I…yes. Anyway. Talk to you soon, Stan.”

“Good luck at your boring meeting,” Stan responded affectionately, and hung up.

* * *

We went miniature golfing that afternoon. As with bowling, my game was horribly inconsistent, ranging from a hole-in-one to a hole-in-sixteen. Mabel was impressively good. Dave was terrible. Nicky and Stan were alright, and Dipper was decent. I enjoyed myself.

That evening my boys helped me prep a wide array of sauces and toppings for tacos in advance of their friends’ arrival. About eight teenagers showed up in addition to our usual four, and after taking over the dining room and living room to eat they hung around in the trees at the edge of the woods, apparently chatting and playing on their phones and goading each other into stupid activities. I recognized Wendy as well as a few from the diner and tried to memorize all their names, but retained only a few. They seemed to be having a good time, though. Despite Dave obviously trying hard to impress them, Dipper trying hard to impress Wendy, and Nicky sabotaging them both by being an uninhibited dork, I heard a lot of laughter.

Since they didn’t seem to need or want any close adult supervision, Stan and I went into his cabin and put on a movie. He stretched out on his recliner in his usual unimpressive undershirt and boxers, and I curled up sideways in his lap, resting my head on his shoulder and playing idly with his gold chain. We could hear the distant chants and laughter of the kids having a good time, but there was also some degree of privacy. I still had hormones bubbling beneath the surface requesting a _better_ degree of privacy, but for now I was fairly content just to watch the movie and listen to Stan’s occasional comments. He had a habit of talking directly _to _the characters on screen, which I found highly amusing.

I must have gotten too comfortable, because I woke up to the sounds of people whispering. The kids. Good, they were back inside. Barely awake, I nuzzled my face against Stan’s shoulder. So comfy. His chest was rising and falling slowly under my arm, rumbling rhythmically. Snores. Stan was asleep, too. That…that was nice. I drifted back off.

Vaguely, I heard more whispers. A girl saying something about a scrapbook. The words “so cute.” A boy complaining about something. A clicking sound. More whispers.

“Mom.” Dave’s voice. I blinked sleepily. “_Mom_.”

“Hm?” I pushed my head up, opening my eyes. The room was lit only by a yellow-green glow. Oh, right. That was me. The room was lit only by me, but I could see Stan sleeping under me in the chair, mouth hanging slightly open, and I could see Dave and Nicky standing in front of me.

“You fell asleep,” Dave told me gently.

“You really _do _glow,” said Nicky.

I yawned as my brain started to work. “Did your friends all get home?”

“Yeah,” Dave assured me. “Thompson has a van.”

“Cool.” I pushed myself into an upright sitting position. Stan grunted in his sleep. “Sorry for passing out.”

“It’s fine,” he said, though he looked uncomfortable. I was sure this wasn’t really a position he wanted to find his mom in, but I was also willing to bet he was grateful it hadn’t been a more compromised one. “You should come to bed.”

“The twins took pictures,” Nicky volunteered, less helpfully. “Dipper said it was for science. Mabel said it was for her scrapbook.”

“Ugh,” I said, and looked around. “Where are they, anyway?”

“In their room. Come on.”

That was enough urging. Stan stirred when I climbed out of the chair, but he didn’t wake up. I debated waking him so he could sleep in a real bed, but he looked comfortable enough. And the twins could look out for him. I followed my boys back to our own cabin. It was fully dark outside, and I thought for the first time that being bioluminescent was actually kind of useful; I had no trouble seeing my way up the steps or opening the door, and I didn’t need to turn on any lights as I stumbled sleepily to my bedroom and stripped off my day clothes. “Love you guys,” I called to my kids, and crawled under the covers.


	9. Day Twelve of Vacation

“Why did we not think of this sooner?”

“Cause the last time all four of them made plans outside the house you wouldn’t have been able to handle it?”  
I thought back. Yes, that was accurate. The last time all the kids were far away from the cabins was the first day I’d gotten a look inside the Diablo…and come to think of it, the first day I’d realized we might have some serious chemistry to deal with. It felt like it had been a lot more than a week. But time can trick you like that when you’re spending almost all your time with someone.

And here it was not even lunch time, with not a single person under eighteen anywhere in the vicinity. Thompson—the guy with the van—had picked up Dipper and Nicky for some big thing at the arcade. I’d just gotten back from dropping Mabel and Dave off at Candy’s house where they were doing “major crafting.” Really, Stan and I shouldn’t even have been taking credit for the time alone, because it was more a stroke of luck than any intentional planning on our part.

That didn’t mean I couldn’t be happy about it, though.

“You know what we need to do?” I said. I was still standing by the door, but he was leaning into the wall right next to me. He’d kissed me almost as soon as I came in the door, and we were both still catching our breath from it.

“Yeah,” he told me. “Get to the bedroom.”

“That too,” I agreed at once. “But I didn’t mean right this second. Just a general ‘thing I want to do at some point.’”

“Make an old man stand around with a hard-on? I got no guarantee how long these things are gonna last, you know.”

“That is the biggest load of crap I’ve ever heard,” I informed him. “First, you’re not _that_ old. Second, I have seen you have approximately zero issues with it thus far. And third—I was going to say, sometime we need to fuck in the car.”

“Sweetie, I don’t care _where_ we do it, just lose the clothes already.”

“Pervert,” I said, pretending to be offended.

“Oh, _I’m _the pervert? You’re the one who just said ‘fuck in the car’ to a sweet old man.”

“Now you’re just being ridiculous.” I turned my back on him, winking over my shoulder as I walked toward his bedroom.

It worked like a charm. I stretched out on my back on his bed almost casually, as if I belonged there. It was a total sham—my heart was thumping furiously in my chest. It was just a bed. It was far more comfortable than the floor of a forest. It wasn’t even as though Stan had any profound attachment to this bed or this room. If I wanted to feel like I was actually sharing some personal space of his, I’d have to board his brother’s boat or visit the Mystery Shack as it had been a year or two ago, one of which would require travelling across the country and the other necessitated going back in time. So just a bed in a rented room. And we’d already had sex. By now, I’d kissed him more times that I could count without taking off my shoes.

But going into the place he slept with the specific intent of getting busy felt intimate in a way that frightened me slightly. Or maybe I was just excited. Probably both.

Whatever it was, it peaked right when Stan followed me into the room and lay down next to me with a soft grunt of satisfaction. I could hardly breathe, and I felt frozen in place. Then he pulled me up against him, short whiskers brushing against my face as he turned to set his glasses on the bedside table, and my instincts remembered the natural outlet for all the nervous energy. I slid my hands over his shoulders as he turned back, appreciating the musculature and broadness in them. I pressed my hips earnestly against him milliseconds before our mouths found each other. Heat ignited inside me and flared out almost instantly. I gripped him tighter and kissed harder, trying to convey how much—how _badly_—I wanted this to escalate. Before last week, I had gone nearly two years without sex. Now suddenly I could barely go four days.

We spent quite a while just lying there kissing, until I was nearly frantic with desire. When he tugged my shirt over my head and slipped his hands behind my back, I shuddered and started planting my mouth urgently against any part of him I could reach.

“Whoa, you’re hot,” he said as his hands moved over my chest.

“So’re you,” I half-moaned, skating my lips along his upper arm.

“No,” Stan said, squeezing experimentally. “I mean you’re _hot_. You’re not sick are you?”

“No, I feel fi-fahhhhh oh God yes like that, like _that_! Like hot to the touch, you mean?”

“Yeah.” He shifted, undoing his pants.

“Well I feel great,” I told him in a rush. “Please do _not_ stop.”

“Does it _look_ like I’m planning to stop?”

“No, but…” I made myself focus for half a second, instead of just touching him. It was very difficult. “If there’s anything specific you want, you’ll point me in the right direction. Right? My body’s trying to rush this…” I dragged my fingers slowly up his thigh. “But we don’t have to rush this.”

He surprised me with a laugh. “My style has always been get in and get off as quick as possible before you get caught. If you can even call that a style.”

“Get caught by _who_?” I wondered aloud.

“Parents. Police. Whoever owned the room we were in.” He shrugged.

I shook my head and kissed his neck. “You have led a terrible life.”

“Be nice. The only reason we’re not done already is because I’m trying to impress you.”

I grinned but turned my head away to hide how pleased I was; that was oddly romantic. And also completely unnecessary, since I’d been practically humping his leg less than a minute ago. “So you’re saying there is nothing specific I should be doing.”

“Wrong. You should be getting naked right now.”

I didn’t try to hide my grin this time. “I’d be delighted.” I unfastened my jeans and wiggled them down over my legs.

“Though since you mentioned it, there _is_ one other thing you could do.”

“Oh?” I kicked my jeans and underwear off the foot of the bed.

“Quit holding yourself back,” he said, peeling off his shirt. I tipped my head to the side, curious, and he continued. “I can tell you want to be making a lot more noise. And moving a lot faster.” He winked at me. “Probably dirtier, too. So why don’t you?”

I felt the blush spread through my cheeks and ducked my head again, shrugging. “Because I’m trying to impress you, too, I guess?”

“Well quit it,” he said bluntly, stepping out of his boxers. Despite taking time to have this conversation, he was still clearly ready to go. Come to think of it, so was I. I nodded.

My legs were already angled at a fairly inviting angle, but he pushed them apart a little more as he moved between my knees. My breath immediately began stuttering through my throat in anticipation, but there was at least enough of a romantic in him that he leaned forward to kiss me again first. Granted, it was a pretty filthy kiss, and he was pretty free with where he put his hands as he did it, but both those things just made me more eager. I fought to swallow a moan, then recalled what I’d just agreed to and let it tear out of me instead. I arched my chest up, harder into his hand, rolling my hips hopefully.

This time he adjusted his position to push in almost at once. My arm flew around his back, fingers digging into his shoulders, and my hips tipped up so hard my feet left the bed. I wrapped those around him, too, hooking my ankles together to hold him against me. I tried to kiss him, but _he _wasn’t holding back this time either. He was moving hard and fast, and concentrating on a kiss was just too much. My head fell back, completing the arch my body wanted to make, and I made a guttural groan so deep and harsh it barely sounded like it’d come from a woman.

I had no idea how he had so much power and intensity in him, and in the back of my mind I _really _hoped no one was anywhere near the cabin. I was making quite a lot of sounds I hadn’t previously known I _could _make, and I came so quickly that Stan kept going right through it. That only made the second one—the one when he came, too—that much stronger. The whole thing was over in five minutes, quick and dirty but strong enough that I was still shaking several minutes afterward. Another shudder of pleasure jolted through me, and I sighed happily. Stan rolled off onto his back, and I followed him by rolling onto my side.

“That was hot,” he remarked. I was glad he was talking, since I didn’t feel capable of speech yet. “Not the way I meant it earlier, either. That was _hot_.”

“Mmhm,” I agreed, nuzzling against his shoulder. He echoed my sigh of contentment, and for a small stretch of time neither of us felt the need to talk. Eventually, though, I broke the silence. “So. No police coming. No parents. No owners. What do we do now?” I smiled lazily; the fingers of my right hand had already started forging trails through his chest hair.

“No idea.” He didn’t seem very bothered by his total cluelessness.

“We could go out?” I suggested doubtfully.

“Do you _want_ to?” he asked in response.

“Not really,” I admitted. “Do you?”

“No.”

“Hm.”

After another lapse in conversation, I asked a little nervously, “So can I ask? About the scar on your back?”

For just a second, I felt him freeze up. But then he relaxed. “Yeah, guess it’s no big secret anymore. Ha, I mean, you glow in the dark, right?”

“Yes,” I said tersely, “and has Ford gotten back to you about that yet?”

He nodded. His hand had moved around my waist in a very comfortable way that I suspected he was unaware of. It felt wonderful. “Yeah, he called while you were cooking last night. Then after dinner Mabel and Nicky did that whole show with the pig and I forgot about it. He said he’d need to dissect one of the toads to know for sure—which he’s gonna do over Mabel’s dead body—but if it’s not caused by touching the things, it’s probably caused by something in their diet. And you came in contact with _that_.”

“The bug!” I exclaimed as a lightbulb of realization metaphorically lit up over my head. “Remember?” I sat up, leaning excitedly over him. “I choked on a bug that night.” Stan indicated that he remembered, but also that he was slightly distracted by the way my breasts were brushing against him. I followed his gaze, accepted that it was a pretty good view, and returned to the subject at hand. “So what can we do about it?”

“He doesn’t think you need to do anything. Unless you keep eating bugs, it’ll probably wear off on its own.”

“You mean I _can’t keep snacking on bugs_?” I feigned horror, then laughed. “Well _that’s _a relief. Thank you.” I relaxed back against his side, wriggling happily. “I really thought this place had fucked me for life.”

“You could have always stayed in Gravity Falls,” he pointed out. “There are worse things.”

“I like places that don’t have transdimensional portals in their groceries stories. Personal quirk, I know.”

“Oh yeah, Dipper corrected me on that. Said it’s a time rift.”

I rolled my eyes. “Regardless. Anyway, where were we…scar! You were going to tell me about it. Because, and I should have led with this fact in the first place, I find scars incredibly sexy.”

He laughed. “You’re weird.”

I nudged his shoulder. “Lemme see.”

Stan rolled over onto his stomach, crossing his arms under his chin. “Why don’t you give me a backrub while you’re at it.”

I suspected he was partly joking, but I saw no reason to refuse. “Sure.” Experimentally, I pushed the heel of my hand into the muscle between his shoulder blades. He made a sound deep in his throat, and I brought my other hand up beside the first. “Right here, huh?” He mumbled something incoherent. I slowly slid my hands upward, moving them in small outward circles. I was no massage expert, but it wasn’t a challenge to feel how much tension he had stored there. I kept going, as smoothly and firmly as I could without making my hands cramp up.

While I was doing that, I had a chance to really study the scar on his shoulder. It wasn’t his only scar; I’d noticed smaller ones over the course of the past week or so, mostly on his hands and face. But this one was especially interesting because it was a _shape_. I wasn’t quite sure what it was supposed to be, except that it held some vague resemblance to a weathervane with clouds above it. The symbols that went along the bottom reminded me faintly of _Lord of the Rings_. I paused in rubbing his shoulders to run my thumb over the smooth, slightly raised surface. Part of me wanted to run my _tongue_ over it. The other part of me was dying to know who had done it to him and why.

“Satisfied?” Stan asked grumpily, and I jumped. I’d been examining it for more than a second or two, clearly.

“Sorry. I just have so many questions.”

“It was an accident,” he said, sounding resigned. I went back to massaging his shoulders. Which was kind of intimate and sexy even without taking the scar into account. I leaned forward, digging my elbow into the muscle. He grunted in approval, and I experienced a little burst of pride for myself, alongside tenderness toward him.

After a minute, he decided to continue. “The lab I showed you, beneath the Shack? Ford took me down there, ages ago. We hadn’t seen each other in years, and we hadn’t exactly parted on good terms. I’d never been to Gravity Falls before and I didn’t know shit about all the weird stuff here. I didn’t care. I came because my brother had finally reached out to me.”

He went silent again for a while, outside of the occasional noise in response to what I was doing. My hands were starting to tire, but I couldn’t bring myself to quit just yet.

“I told you we spent the last year on a boat together. We’ve been through a hell of a lot together. I…he means a lot to me. He always did. But that day, he was being a real jackass. He didn’t care about making amends at all, he was just using me. I didn’t understand, I was hurt, I acted like an asshole too. We got in a fight.” He was quiet again, lost in thought, but only for a minute this time. “I tried to wreck one of his books, and he shoved me. This dumb symbol on the side of his machine was red hot. Burned right through my clothes.”

“Oh, honey,” I said sympathetically. It didn’t even occur to me that I’d never called him by anything but his name before. I would probably have chosen a better pet name if I’d thought it through in advance, but I was caught up in the story and it just slipped out. “It must have _hurt_.”

“It did for a second, I guess.” He sounded almost puzzled, surprised at how the pain had faded from his memory. “But right after that I shoved Ford and he went through a portal I hadn’t even known was on. The shock of that knocked the burn right out of my head for a while. Don’t get me wrong, it hurt like a real bitch later that night, but…” He rolled onto his side, catching me and pulling me close. I didn’t protest. “But I don’t like to talk about it,” he finished. “It was a long time ago.”

I hesitated, putting a tentative hand up to his cheek and cradling it. There was a lot of pain in his eyes right then. I pulled him into a tight hug.

“It shouldn’t matter,” he muttered, almost to himself. “It’s all water under the bridge now anyway.”

I kept holding him. “I have no idea what it’s like to have a twin,” I said after a while. “I can’t imagine what it’s like to go from having another half, to being totally alone. Even when my husband died, I still had the kids. So I can’t…” I trailed off helplessly. One of my hands moved up from his back, smoothing his hair as I hugged him. “I’m so sorry.”

He accepted the affection for a little while. Then he released me to sit up and reach for his glasses. “Eh. It’s probably what I deserved. It’s fine now.” I put my hand on his arm, and he shrugged it off forcefully. “I said I’m fine. Jeez.”

That stung. I rolled the other way, looking for my clothes. I tried not to show the emotional recoil, but my body language must have been telegraphing pretty clearly.

“Aw come on, I didn’t mean it like that,” Stan protested, putting a hand on _my _arm to stop me.

I shrugged it off irritably (how did _he _like it!) and grabbed my underwear. “It’s fine,” I said tightly, not looking at him. “I shouldn’t have pried, it’s my own fault.” I started pulling clothes on. Really, I was more angry at myself than him. I shouldn’t have been this hurt.

“Crap,” Stan said, followed by a lot of nothing. Couldn’t find the words? Was _sorry_ really that hard to come up with? I’d been an idiot to let myself get this involved.

I stepped back into my jeans, still not looking at him. “It’s fine,” I lied. “I just realized the kids could theoretically get back. Don’t want to push my luck by staying naked.”

“Nah, you’re pissed,” he correctly observed. “I’m sorry, okay? It’s a touchy subject. I…I don’t like feeling vulnerable.”

That thawed me slightly, but I finished getting dressed all the same. “No, really, it’s my own fault. I thought I was helping. But you’re right, it was a long time ago, and it’s really none of my business.” I shouldn’t have been that cut by a simple rejection. He had a right to his feelings, too. But I’d really felt close there for a moment, and without thinking he’d yanked it away. It _was_ my own fault.

“No, but it’s…you don’t have to _leave_,” he said lamely.

I turned and smiled, knowing the expression wasn’t going to be filled with joy and happiness. “I should go for a walk or something. Get myself sorted out. I’m a mess, remember? I warned you.”

“Oh, and that makes it okay for _you_ to shut down and bail, but not me?” he snapped with a flare of temper that caught me off guard.

Anger surged up in me, and I walked out.

Stan didn’t stop me, and the further I got from the bedroom door, the angrier I got. I didn’t slam the front door behind me when I left the cabin, but that was only thanks to self-control. I wanted to slam something. My eyes burned.

It was so _stupid_. What a stupid thing to start a fight about. And it had been going so well until just a minute ago. How did it escalate like that? I stalked in a straight line away from the cabins, into the woods beyond the road. Why had I even felt like I could help him? Trust him? Care about him at all? He’d told me from the start who he was. No, he’d told me nothing at all. He’d told me enough. I was leaving next week anyway, it wasn’t worth getting invested. _I’d_ been the stupid one here, thinking five minutes of sex, a back rub, and a story translated to anything emotionally intimate. _Fuck_.

I sat down on a fallen tree, resting my forehead on my knees and wrapping my arms around myself. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I shouldn’t have walked out like that. Vulnerability, that’s what it came down to. He’d admitted he didn’t like feeling vulnerable. I should have just owned up to the same thing. All I had to do was go one and a half more weeks without fucking this up, was that really so hard? After that we’d go back home, and another month or so after that and he’d be back on his boat, and the whole thing would be just a fun memory.

I stood up again, rubbing my hands over my face in frustration. I’d keep moving. Movement always helped when I was feeling overwhelmed. My emotions were just running high, and I’d overreacted, that was all. I’d never been super at relationships in the first place, and I hadn’t had _any_ since my husband died. I needed to keep this light and fun, like the summer rebound fling it was, not get all invested in decades-old sob stories. I could just kick myself sometimes!

I stalked through the woods, glaring at trees and kicking at pinecones. Serve me right if I got lost again. Serve me right if I tripped and hurt myself. I was so _stupid_! I was stupid to care in the first place, and even stupider to screw it up right when he was actually sharing. He’d even tried to apologize. I was such a bitch.

But I was too upset to go back and try to make up right now. I needed isolation. I needed to self-flagellate for a while longer, and then sit down appreciating the beauty of the trees I currently wanted to punch. Then when I was feeling nice and calm, I’d go back and admit I’d fucked up. Maybe I could sneak out to the store and pick up some bacon before he realized I was back. Nothing like frying some bacon for a man to make amends. Then again, Mabel might be back by then, and I wasn’t sure of her stance on cooking pork products around Waddles. That thought made me smile slightly. Progress already!

About an hour later, I made it back to the cabins. I was in much better spirits, until I noticed that the Diablo was missing. My phone, which I’d left lying in the passenger seat of my car earlier, had no new messages. Well _shit_. Probably he’d just gone out to pick up one of the twins, but his absence made me feel guilty all over again.

I went to the store and bought bacon anyway. Waddles could deal with it. Then I drove down to the lake, rather impressed that I could find the way there on my own. I took off my shoes, rolled up the legs of my jeans, and sat on the edge of the dock, kicking my legs in the air above water. Every now and then a toe would get wet. It was a cooler day, but the sun still sparkled on the water. A few boats went by further out, sending out waves that eventually ended at my feet in little ripples. The cliffs in the distance, populated with trees and lining the north side of the lake, were magnificent.

I pulled out my phone, and stared it for a minute before tapping out a text message. _I’m sorry. I was out of line. We cool? _I backspaced, deleting the entire thing. _You’re coming back, right? _Stupid and clingy. Of course he was coming back. _My bad. That was stupid. Sorry I’m a psycho. _Too self-depreciating. _Sorry. I’ve got my phone now, if you want me._ No—I’d had no missed calls or messages from before, so he probably hadn’t known or cared that I’d left my phone behind in the first place. I deleted out all the words but the first one. I hit send.

There was no response right away. I kicked my legs some more, then lay back on the deck and let the breeze roll over me. Despite the sun, it really was quite chilly. I rubbed my shoulders vigorously and headed back to the car. Before putting it into gear, I sent a quick message to both my children. _In town right now, anyone need a lift back yet?_

The phone chirped at me when I’d gone about two blocks. _Me too. _Not from my boys. I went a little faster than I probably should have on the way home.

This time when I got back, his car was not only there, it was still occupied. I put mine in park and ran over. He pretended to ignore me until I rapped lightly on the window with my knuckles, at which point he rolled it down. “Need a ride?”

“Yes,” I said, daring to smile.

“It’s open.”

I went around the passenger side, yanking open the heavy door and sliding over the seat. I could hear the radio now, though it was soft enough I couldn’t tell the song. “I’m sorry,” I said, staring at my hands.

“You said that,” he reminded me. “But you don’t need to be.”

I shot a glance at him, but his eyes skated away sideways without meeting mine. “Sure I do. I was just all butthurt that you wouldn’t let me help. But it’s really _not _my business.”

“If I didn’t want you to care, I wouldn’t have told you in the first place,” he grumbled, still not looking at me.

“That’s good to hear,” I said, and put my hand on top of his. “Because I _do _care. It’s kind of inconvenient, to tell the truth.”

He looked at me. His hand rotated around so that he was holding mine, and his thumb stroked along my finger in a way that made me shiver. “I know what you mean.”

I pushed myself the rest of the way along the seat so that I could put my arms around him. “This was stupid,” I said into his neck. “Let’s not do this again, okay?”

“You got it, sweetie.” He took me by the shoulders and pushed me back enough to kiss me. I sighed audibly in relief and returned it in force.

We were both smiling when we broke apart. Stan’s hand lingered on my shoulder, but he relaxed back into his seat—apparently prepared to pretend the whole thing had never happened. “Okay, spill. What kind of cake did they tell you to make?” The question caught me off guard, and it must have showed on my face. “They didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?” A lightbulb went on over my head, and I clapped my hand to my mouth. “Is tomorrow your _birthday_?”

“No! Forget I said anything.”

“Oooooh, it _is_! Am I allowed to ask how old you are?”

Luckily, he didn’t seem too put out by the kids failing to mention it to me “Depends how good the cake is. And what you get me.” He winked.

I rolled my eyes, but smiled. “What kind of cake?”

“Bacon peanut butter,” he replied without hesitation.

“Ugh! What? Are you…blech!”

Stan looked totally unrepentant. “It’s _my_ birthday.”

I made a face of disgust, but tipped my head in acknowledgement. “I’ll see what I can do. How much glitter do you think Mabel’s going to bust out to celebrate?”

“She knows me better than that!”

“Does she?” I asked. It seemed like it was my turn to wink. “Does she _really_?”

He laughed. “You’re cute when you’re trying to make me worry.” He leaned forward like he was going to kiss me again, and I met him halfway. It was exactly what I needed, what I continued to need. He tasted like toffee today. I melted into it.

“Hey,” Stan observed when we came up for air, “the kids aren’t back yet. I think you said something about the car earlier?”

“I did,” I agreed in a raw whisper. “But at this point, they could turn up at any minute.”

“That’s what makes it fun.”

I sighed again, though this time the sound was heavy with desire. I slipped my hands around his shoulders and lay down in the seat, pulling him along with me. It was almost exactly like I’d imagined; my shirt slid along the leather seat, and there was enough room to stretch out pretty easily if I kept my knees up. Stan fit very nicely between them and didn’t seem to have much difficulty leaning over me despite the seat being slightly narrower than his broad shoulders. It was unfairly arousing.

I untucked his shirt while kissing his neck. He removed mine and slid a hand under my bra while I wrestled with his pants. It felt rushed and exposed and impossibly filthy. I got his fly undone and tugged him back toward me, breathing harsh and jagged. We kissed again, hard and urgent. He put his hand down the front of my jeans.

A car pulled up.

My head snapped up so quickly I nearly cracked my skull against Stan’s glasses. He was off me in about half a second, sitting up in the driver’s seat and pretending to be playing with the radio control. I scanned around frantically for my shirt, pulling it on over my head and jamming my arms through the holes as I sat up. I tried to cultivate my _innocently sitting here listening to music_ look, and realized my shirt was on backward. It was not subtle. I pulled my arms back out, spinning it around and shoving them back through properly as we heard car doors slam.

The kids spotted us immediately. It was all four of them. I saw Thompson’s van already pulling off down the road. Maybe we would have been better off hiding in the car until they all went inside, but the decision was already made; Mabel was running toward the car waving. I got out at once, straightening the hem of my shirt and trying to pat my flushed face inconspicuously. Stan just leaned out the driver’s side window, preventing him from having to stand up right away. He looked totally casual, succeeding where I was sure I’d failed.

“Hi guys!” I said, aiming for excited and instead hitting creepy. Mabel was already giving me a weird look. Dipper, right on her heels, was looking from my face to Stan’s and plainly putting the pieces together. Dave was staying well back from the car, looking repulsed. 

Stan coughed. “Before anyone asks, we absolutely were _not _making out.”

This garnered a loud chorus of “Ewwwwwww!” from the younger crowd. Dave held up a hand as if to ward us off and turned toward the cabin. “Nope,” he said, heading inside. “Nope, nope, nope.”

“What?” Stan said plaintively, opening the door to get out of the car. “I said we _weren’t_.”


	10. Day Fourteen of Vacation

A high-pitched, full-throated scream froze me in the middle of the kitchen. It had come from outside. It had come from Stan’s cabin. Without thinking, I bolted out the front door. Dave was hot on my heels, actually overtaking me as we jumped over the steps and sprinted across the lawn.

“What’s going on?” I heard Nicky cry from inside our cabin. “Mom?”

“Stay there, love,” I shouted over my shoulder. “Be right back!” Hopefully he’d listen. He’d been in the bathroom when we heard the scream, and I wasn’t sure if he was responding to the sound or the rest of his family tearing out of the house.

Dave didn’t stop to knock on the door, though that was more a mark of how familiar we’d become than his sense of urgency. We were halfway through the living room when an ashen Dipper appeared in the hall to greet us. “It’s okay,” he said before we could ask any questions, holding up his hands. His face was not convincing me, though.

“What happened?” Dave demanded, slowing down and stopping the younger boy. “You’re okay?” Dipper nodded uncertainly, and Dave pulled him into a hug. If I hadn’t just had the scare of my life as well, I would have glowed with pride. “Mabel’s okay?” he asked, glancing down the hall toward the bedrooms. My heart was still pounding in my ears, but I could hear the irregular breathing and sniffles of someone crying. That’d be Mabel. That meant she was okay, too.

My heart stopped thumping, as something invisible seemed to be reaching into my chest and squeezing it. I put a hand against the wall to steady myself. “Where’s Stan?”

Dipper jerked his head to indicate his bedroom. “They’re okay.”

I shut my eyes for a moment, leaning hard against the wall. _It’s okay._ The relief washed over me, almost tangible. I still needed to see for myself. You don’t just scream the way Mabel had over _nothing_.

The bedroom door was ajar. Mabel was sitting on her bed, clinging to her uncle. Stan, arms around her in a reassuring hug, was awkwardly rubbing her back. He looked just as shaken as Dipper, who had followed me into the room with Dave. It wasn’t a large room, and it was now pretty crowded—a condition which was not improved by Nicky turning up to join us despite my instructions to stay put. Dipper took over for Stan, letting his sister collapse into his arms and cry. She wasn’t really sobbing, but she’d certainly had some sort of shock.

“What happened?” Dave asked kneeling beside the twins and putting a hand on Mabel’s shoulder.

Stan had maneuvered his way through the crowded room. I was ready to fling myself into his arms after a scare like that, but he caught me off guard by grabbing me and pulling me close before I had the chance. He held me tight against his chest, as if he was scared I might disappear.

We were all so preoccupied with each other that Nicky was the one to notice the smoke coming from the Tupperware container. “Whoa,” he murmured, drawing my attention. He moved toward the container, and I saw that the lid and one side had melted into an acrid smoking blob. The lid was askew, as if it had been hurriedly dropped back in place. Gingerly, Nicky lifted it up.

Mabel gave a fresh wail of dismay. “M-m-m-mr. Starsparkle! He _died_!”

Huh? I tried to detach myself from Stan’s arms so that I could go see for myself. I didn’t want the little guys dead, but a melted container and a scream like that didn’t tally with a dead toad.

Dave was staring at the container, too. “What _happened_?” he repeated with more emphasis, and left his friend’s side to join his brother by it.

I pushed against Stan again, but he just held me harder. I looked up at him, perplexed. “Stan, honey…I can handle a dead toad.”

He shook his head. “Hardly looks like a toad.”

“Huh?” This time I said it out loud.

“He blew up.” Mabel spoke, her voice hollow. “I saw the lid was getting all melty and I went to check on them. I picked him up and—and—”

“And he caught fire,” Dipper finished for her, voice hushed with horror. “Specimen Two spontaneously combusted.”

“Right in my hand,” Mabel added, traumatized. She looked up from Dipper’s arms, and her eyes glittered with tears. “I couldn’t help him. He just started burning, and he blew up.”

“He didn’t blow up,” Dipper corrected her gently. He looked around at the rest of us. “I was there. She screamed and dropped him back in the container. Mabel ran to get water from the bathroom, but he was dead by the time she got back in here.”

There was silence. I stared up at Stan, at a complete loss, but he just held me harder. He didn’t seem to want to look at me. No one else really did, either.

“I tried,” Mabel said sadly, shedding fresh tears. “I really tried. Poor Mr. Starsparkle!”

“Ow!” Nicky exclaimed, jerking his hand out of the toads’ home. “This one’s hot, too!”

Dipper nodded miserably. “They’ve been getting progressively warmer. I noticed they were hot to the touch the other night, but they were still _acting_ normal…”

Dave leveled the sort of glare at him that he normally reserved my attempts to dance in public. “And you didn’t think we might find that _relevant_?”

Dipper didn’t seem to want to meet _his_ eyes now, either. “Well I noticed it right after we got home the other night, so I was trying to avoid your mom and Stan. And they were _acting_ normal! I didn’t want to scare you. I wrote it down in the book.”

Dave crossed his arms over his chest. “You could have told me yesterday. Or, mom. Or Stan. Or, you know, _anyone_.”

Dipper stared into his lap and said nothing. He’d been at the pool with Wendy yesterday. I doubted anything else had even entered his mind. “I checked on them before bed last night. I was going to tell you today.”

“Oh, no,” Dave said sarcastically, and I realized it was fear making him so angry. “No need to tell us_ that _right away. My friend’s mom might spontaneously combust at any time, but that can _totally _wait till morning.”

“Dave,” I said sharply, letting him know that was enough. “I’m not going to spontaneously combust. Just because the toads and I both glow doesn’t mean I’m in danger. Maybe this is something _normal _for the toads. Did you think of that?”

He looked at me doubtfully. “But you’re getting hotter too, Mom.”

I leveled a skeptical gaze at him. “No I’m not. I’m fine.”

Nicky shook his head, and the fear was clear in his face now, too. “No, you _are_. Remember when you hugged me the other night and I pulled out of it?”

That invisible hand from earlier went back to squeezing my heart. “That was because you’re twelve and you hate me hugging you.” He shook his head slowly. “Stan?” I asked, looking to him to dispel this whole idea. _He’d _touched me quite a bit in the past few days. Yes, he’d mentioned I felt warm a few times, but he certainly hadn’t been avoiding physical contact. I didn’t want to use _that _as my argument in front of the kids, so I looked up at him silently, letting my eyes plead for reassurance. “The toads totally _could_ spontaneously combust as part of their normal life cycle, right? Phoenix toads, or something. Sounds plausible to me.”

“Could be,” he agreed, shifting the position of his hands on my back. “But I want to talk to Ford again.”

“How are you even holding her?” Dave asked directly. “Doesn’t it hurt?”

“No,” said Stan stubbornly.

Dave raised his eyebrows. “Why don’t you go call up your brother right now.”

“I…yeah, okay.” He released me, making a faint hissing sound as his skin ceased to touch mine.

“Let me see your arms,” Dave said sharply, stopping him as he started out of the room.

This time Stan met him glare for glare, tucking his forearms flat against his body. “Why?”

“Because you’re lying to her!” my son nearly shouted, stepping forward and grabbing one of Stan’s hands.

He winced as if the contact hurt, and yanked it back. “I’m trying to _reassure_ her!” he nearly shouted back. “How is freaking her out really gonna help? _I _didn’t do this to her, I didn’t even know this could happen, don’t look at me like that!”

“Stan?” I asked, anxiously this time, all my questions packed into that one syllable. He sighed and held his arms out in front of him, palms up. They were bright pink, as if he’d gotten a sudden nasty case of sunburn, and they shone with what looked like a layer of sweat.

I laughed in disbelief. “No, this…this is impossible! I feel _fine_!” I stared around at them, waiting for someone to say it was all a joke. I felt completely normal, there was no way I was going to burst into flames.

Nobody was laughing. Quite the contrary, they were all looking at me like I’d just told them I had a terminal illness. Deep down, I guess I knew that was pretty much true. Now that Stan had let go, I walked over to the toad house and looked down. One toad sat in the corner, looking like an ordinary toad. In the middle of the container was a blackened lump. I stared at it. The world sort of…unplugged itself. I felt strangely detached, like a ghost floating through the house. I walked toward the door. Nobody touched me. I went down the hall and sat down at the kitchen table. Footsteps followed. I stared out the kitchen window. Nothing felt real.

A chair pulled out. I looked toward it, and saw Dave seated across from me. He reached out as if to touch my hand, then pulled back. “Don’t worry,” he told me, the forced reassurance of an adult coming someone who was practically a child still. “We’ll figure something out. Stan’s on the phone to his brother right now.”

Nicky came to stand next to him, staring at me with wide eyes. “This town _sucks_,” he said angrily, kicking the leg of the table. “I wish we’d gone to Canada again. Nothing ever blew up _there_.”

I wanted nothing in the world more than to hug them. And apparently if I did, I’d hurt them. “I love you guys,” I said, feeling like I might cry. “And you’re right, it’ll be fine. Stan’s brother Ford is a brilliant scientist.” _Then why did he say the effects of swallowing that bug would fade, hm, Teagan? _“Anyway, I’m a lot bigger than a toad. Even if I keep getting hotter, it’ll probably take a while before there’s any danger.” _You don’t even sound like _you _believe it. _

Distantly, from the other room, I could hear Stan’s voice. “Call me back. Right away. Seriously. It’s important.”

I shut my eyes, trying to wish those words right out of existence. He hadn’t even gotten through. This wasn’t happening.

I swallowed down hard on both my emotions and the ball that seemed to be forming in my throat. “Okay, question. I can touch you guys if I avoid skin contact, right?”

Nicky looked hopeful; Dave, doubtful. “I don’t know.”

I heard Stan enter the kitchen. “Do you mind if I test something on you?”

“Uh…sure?” He seemed taken aback by the question, but didn’t hesitate.

When we’d arrived at our cabin, it had been pre-filled with an assortment of flatware, silverware, and bakeware. Including several oven mitts. It wasn’t going too far out on a limb to assume this cabin was the same. It only took me two tries before I found the right drawer, and I immediately slipped the oven mitts over my hands. I approached Stan and laid one covered hand over his chest. I didn’t want to hurt him, but he was a grown man and I’d risk him before I’d risk my kids. “Is that okay?”

“Sweetie, you’re not _that _hot yet.” I raised my eyebrows, expressing my doubt. “Yeah, I don’t feel anything.”

“_That’s_ a relief,” I said, sagging. “Can you find me a sweater so I can hug my boys?”

He nodded. I sat back down, propping my elbows on the table and putting my head in my hands. I couldn’t live like this. I’d thought glowing in the dark was an inconvenience, it was nothing compared to what daily life as the Human Torch would be like. Assuming I didn’t turn into a blackened lump, of course.

“Teagan!” Dipper ran out of his room, skidding to a halt in front of the table. “What kind of bug was it?”

I blinked stupidly at him. “The one I swallowed? It was dark and I was running. I never even saw the stupid thing. It was _big_, though.”

“Well,” Dipper said excitedly, “Grunkle Ford said that was probably what caused it, and I think he’s right. So assuming that ingesting the bug caused the bioluminescence in both you and the toads, it stands to reason that it’s behind the increase in heat output as well.”

“And?” Nicky asked, eyes starry with hope.

“_What if we haven’t been giving them the right bugs?_” Dipper asked, as jubilant as if he’d figured out the murderer before Duck-tective.

Nicky’s face registered dawning understanding, then excitement. “You’re saying the bugs cause the bioluminescence, but once they eat them…”

“Right!” They were both nearly jumping up and down. “It’s the _lack _of them that causes the heat!”

My head was moving back and forth like I was watching a tennis match. “What are you guys saying?”

“Mom!” Nicky grabbed my mitted hands and squeezed them, giving me a genuine smile. “We’re saying you need to eat more bugs.”

I saw their point. And I certainly didn’t want to die. But it was also really, really hard to get excited about eating a bunch of bugs.

I heard a phone start to ring, and Stan’s voice take over almost immediately. “Took you long enough! Look, it’s Teagan. She’s getting worse. It’s not just glowing now, it’s—”

“Stan, let me talk to him!” Dipper yelled, rushing off down the hall. Nicky followed in his wake.

I looked over at Dave. There was hope in his face, too, and that fact helped me manage a smile. “Go check on Mabel. I promise not to blow up while you’re in the other room.”

Stan came back into the kitchen as Dave went out, carrying what had to be one of his own sweaters. It was not in great shape. I didn’t care, yanking off the oven mitts at once so I could pull it on. Then I replaced the mitts and pulled him into a hug. “Dipper’s talking to him?”

“Yep.” His arms tightened around me; even through the bulky sweater, I could feel the pressure.

“That sure went off the rails, didn’t it,” I remarked dryly. “I thought Ford said if I didn’t swallow any more bugs the effects would wear off!”

I felt his shrug more than saw it. “I said he was a genius, didn’t say he was infallible.” He moved his hands to my shoulders, holding me at arms’ length so he could get a better look at me. “So you okay?”

I nodded, shrugged, shook my head. I just wanted him to hold me again, honestly. “You should have told me sooner.”

“I said you were hot.”

“Stan.” I gave him a very serious look. “You were practically burning yourself. Are _you _okay?”

He flapped a hand at me. “I’ve had worse.”

I nodded, accepting that. The fact that he’d been willing—no, determined—to hold me that long despite the heat was just more proof than underneath it all he was a romantic and a total sweetheart. “So you heard Dipper’s plan?”

“I heard he has an idea. He took the phone, so instead of standing around I came to give you the sweater.”

“He wants me to eat more bugs.” I made a face. “He and Nicky think maybe they haven’t been feeding those toads whatever made them glow in the first place, and without it…” I used my hands to mime an explosion.

“And he has no idea what kind of bug it was?”

“Nope.”

“So you’re going to chow down on anything he brings you.”

I felt ill just thinking about it. “Well, it flew into my mouth while I was running. So crickets and worms are off the list.”

I’d expected him to laugh, but he still looked worried. The expression didn’t suit him. “Then let’s get started. There’s no knowing how long it’ll take to find the right one. I’ll get the fishing net.”

Eating live bugs out of a _fishing _net. This just got better and better.

But I wasn’t going to die. I _couldn’t_ die.

* * *

“It’s your turn to touch her.”

A hiss. “_Ow_! I think she’s even hotter.”

“Mom, don’t blow up, okay? We’ll go find another one. You still recording all these, Dipper?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Don’t you want to, I don’t know, wait and see if it works?” I asked pitifully. “You don’t know how long it takes to have an effect! And we want to know which one actually has the effect, right? Otherwise we might be right back here next week.”

“That’s why we’re waiting fifteen minutes between bugs!”  
“Right, but if we just sit here staring at you for all that time before we go find the next bug, it’ll take even longer.”

“Don’t worry, Teakettle! We’re on it!”

Six people ran back outside to resume the hunt—Wendy, Thompson, and Grenda had all turned up when the twins sent out a text asking for help. Dipper was still jotting down notes in his journal, but he’d probably be back out there in a minute, too. I took another sip of water, trying to wash away the unpleasant bitterness sticking to the back of my tongue. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think they were having _fun _with this,” I remarked to Stan.

“They feel like they’re helping. They’re worried about you.”

“I know…but also how often can you spend all afternoon forcing your mom to eat bugs?”

“I’m glad you’ve got a sense of humor about it.”

I laughed bitterly. “Beats the alternative, right?” I paused, moderating myself. Aside from the obvious disgust factor of eating bugs—I’d just finished my thirteenth—I was really starting to get scared. Thirteen bugs, four hours, and if anything my exterior temperature was going _up_. Mabel had jammed her finger into her mouth like she’d touched a stove, and she’d barely jabbed me for a second. And I knew what they weren’t saying, with all their talk about how long things would take. They were worried I was running out of time.

“I don’t see _you _laughing much,” I told Stan after Dipper ran off to join his friends in the hunt. “You really think I’m going to die?”

“Sweetheart,” he said firmly, “I spent _thirty years_ trying to fix a broken portal I didn’t understand, because I pushed Ford through it. I punched through a horde of zombies to protect those kids, and I smacked a pterodactyl in the face just to save _Waddles_. Sure, I take the easy way out when I can see. But I _don’t give up_. Okay?”

I gulped and nodded. “Okay. But, realistically. You know it was probably a firefly, right? They glow, the toads glow, it happened as at sunset. It’s the only thing that makes sense. I’ll keep eating whatever they bring me because I want them to know _I’m_ trying, too. But I figure we’ve got at least another five hours until we find the right bug. And we have no idea how long it’ll take to work.”

He rested his hand on my oven mitt. (My hand felt unpleasantly sweaty inside it, but that seemed more due to sitting around in oven mitts in summer than anything supernatural.) “What do you want me to say? Seriously.”

I felt my lip start to tremble. “That it’s going to be okay.”

Stan looked doubtful, but attempted a smile. “You’re gonna be fine.”

A couple of tears slipped out the corners of my eyes and evaporated before reaching my chin. This was so insane. And I was so scared. “You’re a conman, you can do better than that. Really sell it to me.”

“You don’t need me to,” he told me with a touch of more convincing bravado. “Cause you already believe it yourself. Sure, you’re scared right now, but after all you’ve been through do you really think _this _is gonna be what gets you? You’ve raised _teenagers_, Teegs. By _yourself_. You cook full three-course meals for people you just met. You take your clothes off in cars in broad daylight, and when you find out you’re a human firefly, you get _pissed off_ about it. You just spent half your day eating bugs. You’re a total freak, and I mean that in the best possible way. You’re not going down like this. No way, no how.”

That did help, probably more than he knew. I managed a weak smile. “You know what really sucks?”

“I’ve got a list.”

For just a moment, my smile felt real. “That no matter what happens here, I don’t get to go back to normal life now. My choices are spontaneous combustion or regular bug ingestion to maintain bioluminescence. I’m fucked.”

There was a beat. “Yeah, I guess you _could _look at it like that. Or you could say that you’ve really cornered the market on men with a fetish for girls who glow in the dark.”

I actually snorted. “That’s not a thing.”

“Only because no one knows it exists. Once they do, you’re the magazine cover girl.”

“Is this your weird way of making me feel better, or are you just fantasizing about exploiting my disability to make money?”

“Why shouldn’t I make both of us feel better at once?”

“…You know, that’s a fair point. Keep distracting me.”

* * *

It was past six o’clock. The kids were now only bringing me a new bug about once every 45 minutes, since they were running out of ones they hadn’t caught before. I was currently sitting in a bathtub full of ice that Dave and Thompson had run out to get, because the kitchen chair I’d been sitting in had started to smoke. My teeth were chattering and my butt was wet. I was utterly miserable.

On the other hand, I was still here, and we were getting closer to sunset.

Stan was also being a truly excellent companion. He’d stayed by my side nearly the entire day as the kids ran around playing entomologist, talking almost constantly to keep me calm and focused. By now, I felt like I knew his entire life history, from his first day of school to the reason he’d been banned from reentering Pennsylvania to his time in prison to the moment he finally reactivated his brother’s portal. He shared adorable memories about the twins as toddlers, told me terrible jokes, and educated me on the best way to cheat at cards.

If my constant low-grade panic about bursting into flames at any minute hadn’t kept interfering, I would have been enjoying myself. As it was, I was profoundly grateful.

“Listen,” I said to him as I hugged myself in the icy water, “I know this is a downer, and a lot to put on a guy who I’ve only known a few weeks. But if it does happen—”

“I’ll look out for them,” he finished for me, sounding tired. “That’s what you were gonna say, right?”

I nodded. This was awkward on top of scary, but it was also important. “Just until someone from my family comes out here to bring them back home and take over funeral plans and all that. Um.” It was so surreal. “Don’t let them see me, please. If I’m already gone and I look like that toad.” The tears had started again.

Stan swore softly to himself, then leaned toward me. “Gimme your hand.”

“Why?” I asked thickly, but extended my right oven mitt.

He yanked it off, dropped it, and grabbed my bare hand tightly. He flinched, but didn’t let go as he met my eyes steadily. “If it comes to it, yeah, I’ll do everything I can to help your boys. But it’s not going to, okay? Trust me.”

I squeezed his hand, welcoming the human touch and the reassurance it provided. He flinched again, and I made myself let go with a tight nod. “I do.”

He shoved his hand into the cool water surrounding me almost immediately, but he maintained eye contact. Still trying to reassure me with only his eyes. It dawned on me that if I survived the night, I was going to have to extend our vacation; I couldn’t very well leave Gravity Falls if the only thing that kept me from burning up lived in these woods. Right then, having to stay here a little longer felt less like an inconvenience and more like an opportunity.

The front door slammed, making both of us jump. Several sets of footsteps stampeded through the house, and even before they reached the bathroom Nicky was shouting “We got one!” He and Dipper raced through the door, and I could hear more people coming behind them. Proudly, Nicky held up a mason jar with a winged bug clinging to the inside. As I watched, its butt flashed bright yellow-green.

“You did it!” I exclaimed with real hope. I yanked off my other oven mitt and took the jar, shaking it a few times until the firefly appeared stunned. I opened it, dumping the contents into the full cup of water Stan handed me. I chugged it quickly before the bug could extract itself or the glass could crack from heat. My throat worked hard as the bug hit the back of my throat, but I successfully got it down. I set down the empty glass, and sat there while everyone stared at me. As usual, nothing appeared to happen. Since I had an audience (Dave and Thompson were now lurking in the doorway, too, and I could hear female voices coming) I made a face, spread my arms in a wide shrug, and displayed my crossed fingers on both hands.

“We got one, too,” Wendy announced from the hallway. “You ate yours, Teagan?”

“Basically drank it, but yes.”

She nodded in satisfaction. “Cool. She’s giving the other one to the surviving t—”

“To Mrs. Starsparkle!” Mabel corrected her loudly from further away. “She’s a _widow_, Wendy, and her life is in danger!”

Honestly, I was pretty amazed that it was still alive at all. It had started steaming some time ago. Every time they caught two of the same insect, they’d been giving the extra to the toad. It had ignored some of them, but the ones it did eat had about as much affect on the toad as they had on me.

A minute passed. Sitting there in the tub in my clothes with everyone watching me eagerly started to feel a little weird. Dipper pulled his journal out and started furiously making notes. Stan removed his hand from the tub, shook his head, and put it right back in. I fought the instinct to apologize to him.

Another minute passed. “So who’s turn is it to poke me?” I asked.

“I thought we were supposed to wait fifteen minutes?” Thompson asked nervously. “Give it a chance to work?”

“I have a good feeling about this one and I’m freezing in here,” I countered. “If I’m still hot, check again in another ten minutes.” No one seemed to like that idea very much.

“You kids are a bunch of cowards,” Stan said loudly, shaking his head. “Fine, _I’ll_ do it.”

“No, I will,” Dave said. He took a deep breath and threaded his way through the overcrowded bathroom to kneel by the tub.

“Hi,” I said, giving him a smile.

His mouth quirked upward for about a millisecond in response. Then he extended his fingers and swatted at my hand like a cat, gone almost before it was there. He stared in wonder. “That didn’t hurt! Mom. Roll up your sleeve.”

I obliged. He pressed the tips of his fingers against my forearm with more conviction—then yanked them back. “Damn it!”

I raised my eyebrows at him, showing displeasure at his use of swear words, but my heart wasn’t really in it. I was still hot. I looked away from my son, squeezing my eyes shut.

A hand rested on my shoulder. Through the bulky sweater, yes, but still enough to get my attention. “Wait,” said Dave. “It didn’t feel _as _hot. I don’t think. Let’s try again in a minute.”

Wendy, Grenda, and Thompson, realizing they could find something more entertaining to do with their time than sit around watching me, left the room. Dipper remained leaning against the sink, propping his journal up to write on it. Nicky and Dave didn’t look like they were budging.

I chewed my lip for a minute, trying to think what I could say that would make the waiting less painful. Then I realized the answer was all around me. “Do you guys remember when you used to take baths together?” I asked.

Dave narrowed his eyes. “You mean when you used to bathe me in Nicky’s _pee_?”

Nicky giggled.

“I always took you out and drained the tub when he did that,” I countered.

“So every time, then?”

“I didn’t do it every time!”

“Yes you did!

“And then while I was waiting for the tub to drain,” I continued, “you’d both run off, soaking wet, and jump on Dad?”

“No, no,” Dave corrected me with determination, “_Nicky_ ran and jumped on Dad. _I _ran to try and stop him.”

“By farting on me!” Nicky exclaimed, the memory hitting him. “I’d make it to the sofa and you’d tackle me and fart on me!”

“That’s what you’d get for peeing in the bath!”

I sighed, though I was secretly enjoying the memory. I’d always found it pretty entertaining at the time, and now it was rosy with nostalgia. “And by the time I got you herded back into the bathroom, Dad and the sofa would be soaking wet.”

Dave smiled fondly along with me. “He used to tickle us.”

“Hey Mom, what happened to Bartleby?” Nicky asked.

“Bartleby?” I asked blankly, trying to think. “Oh, the puppet!”

Stan, who was still soaking his hand in the water, being a fly on the wall for this bizarre conversation, decided he’d been silent long enough. “You used to do puppets for them? Oh man, don’t tell Mabel unless you want an earful.”

I smiled at that memory, too. “Only in the bath. I’d lie on the floor outside the tub and use the edge of it as a stage for the puppets. Sometimes they’d get wet, and I’d work it into the script.”

“Dave used to grab them sometimes and drown them,” Nicky recalled thoughtfully. “Didn’t you?”

“Only the king.” Dave’s lip curled. “And he deserved it. Sic semper tyrannis.”

I laughed aloud. “I’d forgotten Dad taught you that! Yes!”

“So what was Bartleby?” Stan asked impatiently.

“The _dragon_,” Nicky told him in a voice that said it should have been obvious. “Who always kidnapped the princess.”

“She liked it,” Dave said stubbornly. “She was happy to get away from her mean dad. She wanted to marry Bartleby.”

I’d forgotten that. “That’s right, she _did_! She started flirting with him really hard in later performances!”

We reminisced for a few more minutes, and it worked in calming all of us down as well as passing the time. When we ran out of thing to say about Bartleby, Princess Diamondtiara, Sir Showoff, and the King and Queen, Dave gave his younger brother a nudge in the ribs. “Moment of truth, Nick. It’s your turn.”

He nodded bravely and walked over to me. Dipper put down his notebook to watch along with Dave and Stan. I extended my bare forearm again and held my breath. I felt the pressure as he poked me, quick but firm. The entire room seemed to hold its breath as he reached out and did it a second time. This time he didn’t snatch his hand away, but instead laid his palm flat across my arm.

“It’s better,” he said in wonder. “It’s really better. It still feels like you have a fever. But it doesn’t hurt.”

I burst into tears of relief and grabbed him, pulling him into a hug. It was the sort of thing he ordinarily hated, but this time he tolerated it. Heck, he hugged me back. Dave joined him, both of them clinging to me like they hadn’t done since we lost their dad.

“I’ll. Uh. Go tell everyone else,” Stan said, drying off his hand and pulling Dipper out of the room with him. They shut the bathroom door behind them.

We spent a healthy ten minutes or so crying and recovering from the shock, and realizing that it was really going to be alright. Well, mostly alright. We were definitely not going home later this week. We needed to go out and catch a bunch more fireflies so we weren’t going through this entire escapade again in a week’s time. We were, apparently, totally starving—with all the fear and excitement, no one had thought to eat more than a bowlful of cereal all day. I was soaking wet and chilled to the bone.

So we dried our eyes, and I kicked the boys out of the bathroom. I took a long, hot shower until I felt like myself again. Then I wrapped a towel around myself and went out to find some dry clothes and inform the entire squad that we were going out to dinner to celebrate.

* * *

“So I guess I better get used to this,” I remarked to Stan in the car much later that night. We weren’t going anywhere, just sitting in it. I provided enough light just by existing that we’d found our way there pretty easily.

After dinner the extra teenagers had headed to their respective homes, and the long stressful day had finally caught up to the Kettle and Pines children. They’d retired about half an hour ago, and before the twins had gone home I’d suggested Stan text me once they were in bed. I hadn’t had a single moment alone with him since eating the firefly, and I felt it was seriously overdue.

“I still say it’s fantastic,” he assured me, sounding completely genuine. He was resting his back against the door, reclining enough that I could rest my head on his chest. His left hand kept moving over my hair, and I had my arms wrapped around his waist. Everything was quiet, and the only light to speak of was my glow. It was incredibly peaceful.

“You know, I’m glad you like it,” I murmured. “Personally, if this is the price of being alive and able to touch people, it doesn’t seem so bad.”

“Yeah, I really didn’t want to deal with a dead body. Especially since your kids would have insisted on a ‘legitimate funeral.’”

I snuggled closer. “I know. The corpse being inevitably burnt beyond recognition would have made it difficult to get me taxidermied and displayed in the Mystery Shack.”

“We’re joking about that now?”

“No disrespect to Mr. Starsparkle intended, but yes. That seems to be how I’m coping.” I tried to angle my face upward so I could see something besides his shirt. “How are _you _doing? Shit got kinda real back there.”

“That? That’s just an average day around here,” he brushed it off.

I sat up all the way. “Oh, so you want to pretend it was a big old nothing? Sorry, honey, no can do.” I rested my hand lightly on his arm, just enough to get his attention. “You really were an amazing boyfriend today. I know this isn’t serious, and I hate that I leaned on you so hard. But I couldn’t have asked for more, so thank you.”

Stan shifted uncomfortably. “Those kids would never have let me live it down if I hadn’t done something to help.” Right. He’d tell a million tall tales about heists and heroics, but admit he’d done something quietly kind?

“You didn’t have to burn yourself, you know,” I pointed out gently.

He shrugged and looked away. “You needed a hand to hold.”

“How is it?” I picked up his right hand carefully, and I’ll admit—I appreciated that I didn’t have to hold up a flashlight or angle it a certain way to see. There were five blisters along the back of his hand, four under the pinky and one just inside the thumb. I rotated it to get a look at his palm, which had a raw blistering line across the middle. I winced in sympathy, and brought it gingerly up to my lips. Kissing _on _those blisters would hurt like a bitch, but I let my lips graze the skin near them. Still holding it lightly, I looked back up at his face. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “But I can’t tell you how much I appreciated it.” I leaned forward, releasing his hand and kissing him on the mouth. “Thanks for being there.”

There wasn’t much talking in the car for a while after that. If I couldn’t properly _tell _him how grateful I was, I could damn well show it.

It was really, really nice being able to touch people again.


	11. Day Seventeen of Vacation

“Okay, it’s done!” I shoved my phone into my back pocket and looked around the room.

Dipper grinned and offered Nicky a high-five. Mabel shrieked in delight and flung her arms around Dave. Stan pretended to be totally nonchalant. I sat down by my youngest, giving him a quick half-hug. “You sure you guys are okay with this?”

“With staying here another month?” Nicky asked. “You need to rent an extra house so I don’t have to listen to Dave _snoring _every night.”

“I don’t snore!”

“You snore _so loud_ I bet even Dipper can hear it! Anyway, aside from that, I think it’ll be okay.” He gave me an innocent smile. “We can finish Dipper’s campaign!”

“Just wait till Ford gets here,” Dipper promised. “It’s going to be amazing!”

“How can you two share a room and still get along as well as you do?” Dave asked Mabel.

She giggled. “Twin power, silly! So now that you’re staying, are you gonna do it?”

“Do what?” I asked curiously.

“No!” Dave blushed fiercely.

“Oooh, do what?” Nicky asked eagerly.

“Nothing!” Dave blushed harder.

“Do you have a _boyfriend_?” his brother asked, as immature and obnoxious as possible.

“I hate you,” Dave said, and hid his face.

“Ooooooh, you _do_! Mabel, who is it?”

Mabel looked torn between sharing exclusive gossip and protecting her friend, but of course she chose the high road. “I can’t tell you. It’s not official yet.”

Dipper sighed. “You set this up, didn’t you?”

“If I _did_, it would be guaranteed _love_. You know how good I am at matchmaking!”

“Dipper? Should I be worried?”

Stan put his arm around my waist and directed me out of the room. “I don’t need to hear this, do you?” he asked softly as we walked.

“Welcome to the neighborhood for _reals_, Teakettle!” Mabel called after us.

“Don’t kiss anywhere we might go!” Nicky added.

“Okay, we’ll just stay in my bedroom then,” I remarked lightly, unable to resist.

We left the room to dramatic sounds of disgust.

Nicky did have a point about the lack of space in the cabins; if we weren’t actually going to hide in the bedroom or listen to them in the living room, our only option was leaving the building altogether. Luckily right now we still had an empty cabin to go into. Stan’s dining room table was covered in glitter, snapshots, and other scrapbooking materials. The living room had Dipper’s DD&MD campaign plans all over. Maybe the bedrooms were more of a practical idea that I thought.

Stan ignored all the paperwork and sat down in his recliner. I perched on the arm of it, and squealed happily when he grabbed me and yanked me backward into his lap. A surge of happiness rolled over me as I looked up at him. “You need to shave again,” I said fondly, running a hand over his chin. “Unless you’re planning on growing a beard.”

“Ugh!” He laughed. “So who do you think Dave’s secret boyfriend is?”

I smiled. “I have a few theories. But I’ll wait for him to tell me. Hopefully it actually pans out for him. Putting yourself out there can be terrifying.”

He jerked his head in agreement.

“At least he’s happy about us staying the extra time,” I reflected.

Stan nodded again. “This way Ford gets to meet you. Prove I’m not making the whole thing up.”

“Oh he does _not _think that.”

“He might. No matter how many pictures I send him.”

I giggled. “Please tell me you’re joking. Please please please?”

Stan looked shifty, and scratched the back of his neck. “What’re you worried about? I already mailed all the really interesting ones to Penthouse.”

I wagged a finger at him and shook my head, trying very hard to look disappointed.

“Seriously though. You can tell him how incredibly charming I am, he can play some of that boring math crap with the boys, and he’ll make some pills out of your fireflies so you don’t have to swallow any more live insects.”

I shuddered at the thought. “Don’t remind me. Do you think he can make enough to get through the year?”

“Beats me. Why, can’t wait to get out of here?”

“No, I was just thinking of not blowing up come January. I mean, even here the bugs die off in the winter, don’t they?”

Stan stared at me. “I didn’t think of that.”

“Sadly, it’s one of those things I kind of _have _to think about. Why? You think I’m not happy about the extended vacation?”

“You did only plan to stay a few weeks.”

Well, that was fair. But plans had changed. I was starting to think about the possibility of _staying_ here, if I could find a job. True, the Pines wouldn’t be around come fall, but my boys were rapidly making other friends as well, and no one here would think twice about my nocturnal glow.

“You that eager to get rid of me?” I asked, turning the tables on him.

“Yeah.” He grinned. “Then I can finally stop worrying about you stealing my car.”

Ooh, touché, Stan. “Really, you’d stop worrying about it? I mean, you’ll be on a boat how many hundreds of miles away? Not like you can really stop me.” I walked my fingers up his arm, feeling rather mischievous.

Stan laughed. “You wouldn’t know where to start.”

I sat up, indignant. “Are you calling me dumb?”

“No. But you’re a girl scout.” He wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling my back flush against his chest. His breath tickled my ear, and I wiggled in protest until it started to get a little too arousing.

“A girl scout, huh?” I said, folding my arms across my chest and staring forward.

“Yep.” He was still whispering into my ear. Damn him. I squirmed again, but he held me tight.

“Ohhhh,” I said as realization dawned. “This is a test. So I can prove I know how to play dirty. What, am I supposed to jerk my elbow back into your throat, grab your keys from the kitchen table, and run for the hills before you can catch your breath?”

His grip loosened. “That’s not bad, sweetheart. You knew they were on the kitchen table.”

I leaned sideways so he could see my wide, serious eyes. “I’m always paying attention. And also, girl scouts are not nearly as innocent as you seem to think. One of my friends lost her virginity at scout camp.”

“No kidding.” He seemed mildly impressed.

Good. “Actually…it was me.” I beamed at his surprised face. “But you’re right, I am woefully ignorant in terms of criminal activity. How am I supposed to help you cheat at gambling if I don’t know the best way to distract the dealer?” I batted my eyelashes.

“Holy mackerel there _is _such thing as a perfect woman!” He sounded so entranced, I just had to laugh.

“Now to be fair,” I added, “I’d be garbage at any nighttime heists. And also I am not remotely graceful or strong, so you can nix pretty much anything that requires stealth. Oh, and I refuse to go to jail because my kids need me, so you’d be taking the fall if we got caught. Plus I’d feel really guilty about ripping off innocent people, so basically stick to casinos and total assholes. But hey—” I turned in his arms and gave him a kiss. “At least I’m taking an interest in your hobbies?”

“It’s a start.” He pushed me back upright, and got out of the recliner. “Now we gotta teach you to cheat at cards.”


	12. Day Twenty of Extended Vacation

It wasn’t that I was really considering turning to a life of crime, and I think he knew it too. Like he’d said, I was a girl scout. I was, however, having a wonderful time learning sleight of hand, distraction, lock picking, and some basic combat. Stan seemed to be having just as much fun teaching me as I was enjoying learning it. I wasn’t great at everything. The lock picking came surprisingly easily, at least on the simple ones he gave me. Sleight of hand was harder, and I was just lousy when it came to dodging or hitting. When it came to cheating at cards I turned out to be pretty decent—after he’d thoroughly taught me the rules of all the games, anyway. He was pretty appalled that I had no clue how blackjack worked.

All in all, it was much more enjoyable than a line up of sightseeing would have been. Besides, I was learning my way around town through the natural course of things. Between routine errands and association with the Pines family, it seemed like half the locals now recognized me. That meant I had to try and remember their names, but happily that was one of my strengths. I liked Grenda’s and Thompson’s parents quiet a bit, now that we’d started chatting when delivering the kids to various summer activities. The lady at the grocery store made a point of greeting me now. Someone I passed at the gas station asked me to tell Soos hi for him next time I was at the Shack. And so on.

And I was getting to know the locations, too. It was a pity that the unwanted superpower I’d gained from my visit was bioluminescence instead of an infallible internal compass, but even so I found I didn’t get lost often these days. I could ask Stan where something specific, like the petting zoo Mabel had mentioned, was located, and when he gave me the nearest street intersection I’d _understand_.

By now, everyone who wanted to learn how to cook something had spent an evening helping out in the kitchen. I was running out of impressive meals. Today I was just going back to stir fry, and if anyone wanted to come look over my shoulder I’d pass them my extra knife and cutting board.

It was funny—initially, today would have been our last day in Gravity Falls. I’d had to make some calls back home and to the cabin’s owner to ensure things wouldn’t fall apart if we extended our stay, but really it was amazingly smooth. I got to spend a little more time with a man I liked more with each passing day, and the kids were treating the place like they lived here. No one was complaining about missing Michigan. That might partly be explained by the fact that no one wanted to make me feel guilty about my “condition” necessitating the extension, but it genuinely seemed like we were all enjoying the additional time.

Dave was still being very elusive about whoever he was crushing on, but I figured he would tell me when he was ready. He also pointed out a house in the downtown area with a “for sale” sign in its front yard; while I wasn’t prepared for anything that long-term, the fact that he mentioned it at all was a pretty good clue that things were going well.

Part of me, I admit, was entertaining the idea. Our trip to Canada last summer had just been a long vacation, but something here was different. It seemed like a fresh start, a chance to shake off all the grief and insecurities we’d been carrying around Michigan. Before coming here, it would never have occurred to me that a move was just what we needed, yet it seemed increasingly viable.

On the other hand, how much of that was actually realistic? We had friends, school, house, job, family, everything back in the Great Lakes. Picking up and relocating wasn’t that easy even if we already knew the town. And, as I kept reminding myself, a large part of why we were so comfortable here was our relationship with the Pines. At the end of summer, Dipper and Mabel would be returning to their parents and their real home in California, while Stan would be hopping back on a boat to explore the world with his brother. Without them, how much appeal would Oregon really have?

At any rate, that was a long way in the future. I refused to even give it serious consideration until after Ford arrived next month to evaluate my condition. Once I knew where I stood with that…well, anyway.

In the meantime, we were developing a sort of summer routine. Stan and I would spend the morning goofing around, usually with my less than respectable “lessons” (or if we could get away with it, something even more scandalous) while the kids slept late. Then they’d either run off to hang out with their friends in the woods or in town, or a horde of teenagers would descend on one of the cabins. Depending where they were going, we might tag along, but most often we found ourselves out at the Shack. I was getting to know Melody more, and was encouraged to actually help out around the place (unpaid, of course) instead of just pretending I was a rich tourist. It was fun. I liked stocking the shelves, copying printed materials, and touching up paint and glue on some of the exhibits. Melody was a total sweetheart, and hilarious to boot. Granted, I was doing it for free, but it was still one of the more better jobs I’d ever had.

Stan was still convinced one of these days I’d let him make me into an exhibit there. I refused, mostly because standing around in one spot for that long under a blacklight sounded incredibly tedious. Then again, I’d done theater in my youth. Maybe he could convince me to do it for a special one-night engagement. Actually, that was a great idea. He could advertise it as a big event, probably make a bunch of money. Granted, it meant me posing as an “exhibit,” which sounded demeaning…but then again, Stan had being trying to make me feel good about being a firefly from the start. I wanted to do something to show him I appreciated it.

I’d put off that decision for a while longer, too.

Besides, today was not a day to worry about long-term decisions or implications. Today we were getting ready for Summerween.

Until the Halloween-themed store had opened up about a week ago, I had never even heard of this holiday, but apparently out here it was a big thing. One night in October wasn’t enough for the people of Gravity Falls. They had to have _Summer_ween, too. The idea of using watermelons as Jack-o-lanterns had totally charmed me, and by now I was completely on board with the idea. Who doesn’t want an excuse to dress up and eat candy? The twins were planning on going, along with Candy and Grenda.

Nicky was definitely in, but Dave kept vacillating back and forth. He wanted to dress up and hang out with the girls, but he also wanted to go to his friend Robbie’s party and hang with the cool kids. I was fairly sure the guy he was after was older, so it came as no great surprise when he asked Mabel to help him with hair and make-up for his costume but opted out of trick-or-treating. I hoped he had fun at the party.

The cabins weren’t really in an area that would draw a lot of trick-or-treaters, but since Stan was just as into the holiday as everyone else, we put up a giant fake scorpion crawling up the side of my cabin. We also got costumes, though the process was derailed for a while when I stumbled across an old Snooki costume and tried it on. I’d thought it was hilarious, since he was originally from Jersey and all, but he was very conflicted. Apparently it made me look like a slutty version of his mom.

So the kids were gone for a few hours and we were lounging around my cabin, watching a truly terrible scary movie and occasionally sneaking a piece of candy out of the bowl. I’d gone for a cute bobbysoxer look, tying my hair up with a ribbon and making sure my seams were straight under my poodle skirt. Stan was dressed in the old-timey convict outfit, stripes complete with a ball and chain. I asked whether he found the irony of that hilarious, and he told me he just had the outfit left over from when he’d broken out of that Colombian prison. I was pretty sure he was joking. He’d never mentioned a prison _break_ before, and the ball was plastic.

He also had me stick a fake “knife” under one shoulder blade, and apply copious amounts of fake blood around it. When we finally heard a crowd of kids coming, he screamed very convincingly and loudly toppled over a chair, knocking open the front door just as one brave child set foot on my porch. Stan fell through the door dramatically, groping helplessly at the hilt of the knife as he stumbled down the steps. “Help me!” he mumbled weakly as he fell on a little girl’s candy bucket. “Somebody call an ambulance!”

The girl shrieked loud enough to raise the dead, and all five of them turned and ran toward the car I could see waiting in the distance. By the time they made it there, Stan was sitting on the ground laughing his ass off.

“Serve you right if they call a real ambulance,” I said, offering him a hand to pull himself back to his feet. “Or if their dad comes down here to kick your ass.”

“They won’t.” He waved cheerfully at the retreating car. I could just see the pale faces of children peering out the windows at us as they drove off. Of course they’d see _me_, which would just make the whole experience that much more bizarre.

Stan checked me out again as we walked back inside. “I like that skirt on you.”

Of course. Outside of trying on costumes, he’d never seen me in anything but jeans, shorts, or (rarely) a swimsuit. “You know the best part about it?” I asked, slipping my hand innocently into his and then using it to tug him closer. “Easy access. You don’t even have to take anything off.”

To my surprise, he started laughing delightedly. “Is that something you’re proposing to scare the next batch of kids?”

I made a pretend-angry face. “Fuck you!”

“That’s the idea, sweetie.” We’d just reached he front steps. In one swift, effective movement, he pushed me around in front of him, up against the porch, and moved up the back of my skirt.

I was wearing underwear, but I squawked in surprise and indignation all the same. “Stop it! Someone will _see_!”

“We’ll see the headlights before anyone gets close enough to see anything,” he promised. He did release me, allowing me to turn in his arms so we were facing each other. I was still backed up against the porch, though, and we were very close. I should really find another argument for taking this inside—but he was _right _about the risk making it more exciting.

I stood on tip-toe, putting my arms around his neck, and he kissed me without hesitation: fierce, dirty, and with a sense of urgency I just couldn’t say no to. Real quick. Just real quick.

The bottom half of his costume had an elastic waistband that was even easier to shove down than his favorite worn-out boxers. The porch was just above waist height for me, and he lifted me easily onto it. My underpants were so easy to shove to the side. I clung to him as he pushed in—on the front porch, in Halloween costumes, while my skin glowed in the fucking dark, where a group of kids might come by at any minute. I could not think of another time in my life I came that hard, or that quickly.

“Ho. Lee. Shit,” I breathed as he set me back on my feet. They didn’t want to hold me, so I just made sure my skirt was back in place as I leaned against the porch. Stan adjusted his outfit, too, and aside from the fact that we were out of breath you’d never have known for looking at us that we’d just been doing something so carnal.

“Hey, watch your mouth,” Stan scolded my swearing. “There might be kids around.”

Silent convulsions of laughter got the best of me, and I stood there shaking my head and dabbing at the corners of my eyes. “At the risk of sounding romantic,” I said, “I have never known a man like you before.”

“That’s not romantic. Lots of people say that.” Then he gave me a smile that weakened my knees all over again. “You’re the first one to say it like it’s a good thing, though.”

I leaned upward to rub my cheek against his whiskers, letting it evolve into a quick kiss. “I’m honored to have that…hm.” I had no idea what word I was going for here. _Honor _was just going to sound stupid. “Distinction.”

Beyond his shoulder, I could see two round circles of light approaching. My eyes widened. “Kids! Get back inside!”

He shook his head and dashed around the side of the cabin before I could react. At a loss, I walked up the steps so that I could get the bowl of candy from the main room. As soon as this load of children—slightly older than the last group—approached the porch, Stan crawled around the side, dragging the shoulder with the fake blade sticking out. I’d forgotten all about it, and was rather impressed that I hadn’t knocked it off during the past five or ten minutes. “Help…me….”

One little boy stood there staring at him studiously for a long minute after the rest of them ran away. Stan flopped an arm out and grabbed his ankle, and he screamed. I stood there with my hands on my hips, waiting for the car to pull away and my ridiculous boyfriend to get back up. “Why did we even bother buying candy?” I asked as he came up the steps.

“What sort of question is that? It’s _candy_.”

“You’re worse than the kids sometimes, I swear.”

“It’s your turn next time, sweetheart.”

My jaw dropped. “Me? I can’t scare kids! That’s terrible!”

“Sure you can! It’s fun. Now what’s your plan? Lay it out for me.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I hang your corpse from the porch.”

“Ha! But seriously.”

“I don’t look scary! I…hold on. I’ll be right back.”

Ten minutes later I was lying on the roof of the porch, concealed under a blanket, my heart thumping. _Kids love being scared_, I reminded myself. _It’s part of the appeal of the holiday. And if they’re too young, you can just stay put._

They were another older set, nearly teenagers. I waited until they were close, then threw off the blanket and jumped from the roof in quick succession. My left ankle buckled when I landed, but I stayed on my feet and bared my teeth in a growl. Three kids were already shrieking, and the last one looked pale and shaken. I shook my head and grinned at that last girl, the one who hadn’t yet retreated. “Hi. Want some candy?”

She gave me a very weak smile. But she did come up the porch for the candy. Her friends turned around and followed.

“That was pretty good,” Stan congratulated me after they’d taken their prize and run. “The scare was great! But what’d you give them the candy for?”

“I felt bad.”

He shook his head in disappointment, but I couldn’t help feeling proud about pulling off the jump-scare I had. I wouldn’t do it again, though. My ankle was going to need some ice later.


	13. Day Twenty-Four of Extended Vacation

“I love this song!”

There was a loud groan for the back seat. “Stan,” said Dave politely, “could you _please_ stop leaving the radio on the station that makes Mom lip-synch to everything?”

I was already mouthing words into an invisible microphone, complete with closed eyes and a slight sway. _Move Just a Bit Closer_ was just too fun _not _to.

“Aw but she’s_ happy_,” Mabel argued with him. “You go, Teakettle!”

I opened my eyes to turn quickly to the back seat and wink at her. Then the lyrics demanded the return of my attention. The chorus was the best part.

“No! Don’t encourage her!” Nicky hissed.

I watched Stan out of the corner of my eye as I pretended to belt the second verse. He liked this music too, after all. And he usually seemed amused by my performances, though he had assured me on more than one occasion by now that I was a very bad dancer.

I must be doing a truly amazing job this time, because he was actually cringing. I grinned. This was a perfect song for him, actually. The protagonist of the song made a move on someone else’s woman and then had to run for it. Hilarious and fitting. I glanced at him again as the song made its way back to the chorus. Manly and strong, that’s what the guy in the song was supposed to be, and it really did fit Stan, too. Yes, he made sounds getting up from a sitting position, his posture was pretty terrible, and he liked to exploit his age for sympathy—but he’d been showing off some of his old boxing moves to me the other day, and _damn_. Between the broad shoulders and the force he could punch with, he could be intimidating if he tried. I’d been very impressed. Well, not so much _impressed_ as _turned on_. Well, maybe a bit of both.

The last verse was ending. I slid across the seat, closer to my boyfriend, and stopped holding myself back. If he wanted to date me, he could handle my terrible singing. “Move just a bit closer,” I sang with the radio, lifting my eyebrows suggestively and placing my hand on his thigh. “You’re my kinda guy, so manly and strong. Move just a bit closer, I need a kiss, and I’ve waited so long.”

Dipper sighed loudly. “Grunkle Stan, you just missed our turn.”

Stan took a sharp right at the last minute so that we could loop back to the proper route. “Blame Teagan. She’s distracting me.”

“Teagan, quit distracting Grunkle Stan,” Dipper said, perfectly happy to shift the blame.

“Hey!” I protested sharply. “Stan does not need my help to make him a terrible driver. He does just fine by himself. I refuse to accept the blame.”

“Then you can accept the blame for our ears bleeding, instead.”

I glared at Dave. “Rude!” He ducked his head and smirked. Mabel had braided his hair back again, so he couldn’t hide behind it. He looked cute—but then, it always made me happy when I got to see his face. “So what are you seeing?” I asked, letting him off the hook for his insult on my singing.

“Revenge of the Mutant Monkeys?” He looked to his friends. “Is that what we settled on?”

Mabel giggled. “It’s not about _what _we see, it’s about _who _we see.”

Dave blushed.

Out of consideration for his feelings, I pretended not to notice this part of the conversation. I’d already gathered that Thompson and a few of the other guys I’d met this month worked at the local theater. It didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure this one out. “Mutant Monkeys?” I asked Stan, letting the teenagers enjoy a false sense of privacy. “Is that like Planet of the Apes? Or more like X-Men? Or Attack of the Giant Killer Zombie Tomatoes?”

He was smiling gently as he turned into the theater parking lot. “Does it matter?”

“Nope, not remotely. So do we drive out to Lookout Point to make out and traumatize all the teenagers there? Or go home and take a nap?”

Stan’s smile expanded. “Nope. I’ve got a surprise.”

I drummed my fingers on the leather seat. “Should I be worried?”

He feigned looking hurt. “Don’t you trust me?”

Slipping my hand into his, I grinned. “You know I do.”

We pulled up along the curb in front of the theater doors. “Now you said you don’t need a ride back, right?” Stan gruffly demanded. “I don’t want a call in an hour and a half crying that you’re stuck here.”

“Nah, we can walk to Candy’s house afterward. She and Grenda are meeting us here.”

“Okay, you guys have fun!” I turned to wave as the kids piled out of the backseat. I loved that it could fit all four of them. This car was amazing. “Text me if you won’t be back by eleven.”

They all shouted various responses to that, and the door slammed shut. We watched them head toward the doors, and then Stan peeled out of the parking lot. “So where are we going?”

“I told you, it’s a surprise. Close your eyes.”

I wriggled happily in my seat, and obediently shut my eyes. “Ooh, I’m excited.”

We drove in silence for a minute, which just added to my sense of suspense. With Stan, it could be literally anything. I might open my eyes to find us at the lake, or in the middle of the woods, or somewhere hopelessly romantic, or preparing to rob a bank. Well….probably not that last one. Probably.

“I’ve never been serenaded before,” he remarked mildly as he drove.

I snorted. “I’d hardly call it serenading. But I was entertaining myself.”

“Not just yourself.” I couldn’t see whether he was smiling, of course, but I could guess. “Hope you’re not counting on me taking you to karaoke night at the Shack next month.”

“The Mystery Shack has a karaoke night?” I asked, baffled rather than insulted. “But it…why would…this just raises so many questions!”

“Mabel started it last year. Of _course_ Soos wanted to keep it going.”

“When is it?”

“Your eyes are still closed, right?”

“Yes. Oooh, are you going to tie me up and throw me in the trunk?”

“I wasn’t planning on it, but you sound like you’re into the idea.”

“Maybe a little.” I couldn’t wink without opening my eyes, but I could wiggle my eyebrows. “And you changed the subject. When is it?”

“What makes you think I know? I don’t run the place anymore.”

I couldn’t roll my eyes, either—who knew keeping your eyes closed could be so inconvenient when you were just sitting there? “You might as well be, from what I can tell. You’re terrible at retirement.”

“Yeah, well…” He coughed. “When Ford asked me to come exploring with him last fall, I was going to shut down the Shack. But Soos, he’s been there for years, and he really cares about the place. It felt like letting him take it all over was the way to go.”

“Awwww,” I interjected.

Stan snorted. “He’s got the enthusiasm, and he works hard, but he’s crap at the business side of things. The place is leaking money like a sieve. At this rate I don’t think it’ll be around in a few years.”

“So you’re helping him,” I observed.

He made a noncommittal sound, as if this was some rude accusation I had leveled at him. “I put half my life into that place. I guess I’m not quite ready to see it shut down after all.”

“That makes sense.” I reached out for his hand again, still with my eyes closed, and only had to grope around for a second to find it. “So do you think you have him on the right path now?”

“I dunno.” He sighed. “He’s too honest. You have to be a little bit of a crook to run a business.”

I digested that information, not sure whether or not I agreed with him. “So what are you going to do?”

“Stop asking so many questions. Throwing you in the trunk is sounding better and better, sweetie.”

I made an air-kiss in his direction, and heard him chuckle.

“Keep ‘em closed still,” he told me as I felt the car slow down and halt completely. I waited patiently, still holding onto his hand. Damn it, my mind did not want to give up on that idea of being blindfolded and tied up. Having my eyes closed made all my other senses just a little bit stronger—and besides, it sounded really dirty.

We continued to sit in the car in silence. “Um, Stan?” I asked hesitantly. “What are we waiting for?”

“I’m making sure the coast is clear,” he told me in a way I think he considered reassuring.

“Okay….?” I kept waiting.

The car started rolling again, slowly. He must be moving to a different parking spot. We took a turn, which slightly confused my senses, and then I felt him stop the car and turn it off. “Great. Here we go!”

I opened the door and got out, sliding my hand over the hood. “Can I open my eyes yet?”

“Yeah, you’d better. Here, put this on.” Something soft was pushed into my arms, and I opened my eyes to see a thin blanket. He’d taught me enough of his old tricks in the past week that I instinctively put the blanket over me to cover my glow, wrapping it around myself and draping it like a hood. As soon as that was accomplished, I looked around to see where we _were_. It was a museum.

I turned to Stan, silently questioning. He flashed me a grin. “Gravity Falls History Museum. After hours.”

I stared at him. “We’re going to break in? To a museum? What do they have?”

“Nothing I need,” he admitted freely. “But I thought it’d be a good test for your lock-picking. And you seem like the kinda girl who likes museums.”

“I _do_,” I admitted. “I’m actually very interested.” Walking around a darkened building alone with a man at night sounded exciting, and the fact that it was a museum I hadn’t yet visited aroused my intellectual interest. Add to that the fact that we were breaking and entering, and my pulse started racing. “But don’t they have, you know, cameras or something? Or an alarm system?”

Stan shook his head dismissively. “It’s really basic. I’ll show you how to shut it down. As long as we don’t take anything valuable, no one’s gonna care.”

I put my hand back in his and started walking. “I’ll take your word for it. But remember, if we get arrested, you’re taking the fall.”

He looked at me like I was an idiot. “I’ve been on dates before.”

I laughed, and he clapped a hand over my mouth. “Keep it down, we’re not in yet!”

I bobbed my head, and we ascended the deserted stone steps in near silence. We stopped in front of two large glass doors. There wasn’t any visible lock that I could see at first, but when I lifted my hand to the smooth metal handle, the glow revealed a small keyhole. I lifted my eyebrows at Stan, and he raised his right back at me. Fine. I held out my hand, and he produced a small bag of metal tools. I accepted it and poked through for the one that looked like the right size. “You’re lookout, then?” I asked under my breath. He gave me a shrug-nod and turned to watch the street.

I slid the longer of the tools into the keyhole, carefully wiggling it, and then added a second one the way Stan had showed me last Thursday. I tried to be patient, even though my palms were sweating from stress and/or excitement (I wasn’t quite sure which). “Hurry up, sweetheart,” Stan murmured, which I found profoundly unhelpful. I took a deep breath, dried my hands on my “cloak,” and tried again.

This time, after a minute of careful, precise movements, I heard a click—and just stopped myself squealing in excitement like I would have done back home. “Their security is really terrible,” I whispered as I pushed the door open.

“Who wants to break into a history museum,” Stan pointed out as we slipped through, letting it shut silently behind us.

“Yeah, but there’s no way this is up to code,” I said softly as he looked around on the wall to our left. There was a small white panel there, underneath a smoke detector. He flipped it open and hit the _enter_ button three times rapidly, then stepped back with his arms spread wide.

“There’s no way it was _that_ easy,” I argued, daring to left my voice from _whisper_ to _slightly hushed_.

“I wouldn’t have tried it if it wasn’t going to be easy,” he told me in similar tones. “I’m not stupid. So! What would you like to see first?”

“Ancient history, obviously.” I dropped my cloak by the door, glad to be able to move freely again. My light output doubled.

“Oh man, you’re even more boring than I thought,” he ribbed me.

I looked at the museum map to the right of the front desk. There was, indeed, a prehistory section. I started walking that direction. “So there’s not even a night watchman or anything?” I asked doubtfully as we followed a mostly blank hallway.

“Nope. The kids broke in here last summer, if you want the truth. Walked right in through the back door. Security’s a little lax.”

I turned back to him, cocking one eyebrow. “And why exactly did you make me pick the lock out front, then?”

He spread his hands wide as if it were obvious. “Fun.”

Laughing, I shook my head. “You took me to a museum, so I’ll let it pass.”

I was walking again, but he caught up to me. “And because it was fun.”

“And because it was fun,” I agreed. At least, finding out I could actually _do _it had been fun. A triceratops skeleton came into view as we approached a corner. “Ooh, look, dinosaurs!” I broke into a jog, eager to see the exhibits. There were several other fully assembled skeletons in the large room, and I ran around looking at them. Toward the end of it I could see a hallway with a (presumably fake) sabretooth tiger, but I doubled back rather than leave Stan behind. Everything was beautiful and eerie, lit only by a few dim floor lights and my fluorescent glow. Realizing that for once, there was no one to stop me or tell me off, I climbed over the barrier and put a hand on the giant leg bone of a hadrosaur. Awe filled me.

I turned back to look at Stan, and he must have seen the shine in my eyes, because he puffed up with pride. “You think that’s good? We found some real ones preserved in a cave one time.”

“That’s right,” I recalled. His colorful stories seemed a long way from this silent, magical place. “Didn’t you say you punched them in the face?” Before he could answer, I jumped back over the barrier (for a wonder, _not _tripping and injuring myself) and grabbed him into an unexpected hug. “This is so cool! What a great idea! Come on.” I dropped my arms from his shoulders down to his hands, tugging him eagerly.

We proceeded down the hall, past more skeletons and taxidermized animals. Any time it struck my fancy, I went right ahead and touched them. I’m sure Stan thought it was incredibly tame, but stepping over those museum barriers felt deeply rebellious to me. He seemed to enjoy watching my obvious excitement, though. And when we got into the start of human history in Oregon—a large room centering on a large sandstone arch covered in ancient carvings—he displayed some personal interest. Granted, this interest manifested as walking over to a carving that featured some sort of triangle with an eye in the middle and leveling a solid kick at it. But I’d count it as a win.

After that we wandered into the exhibit on the Oregon Trail, moving into pioneer times for the city. There was a covered wagon that looked old enough to be real, and I hopped up to take a look inside. Someone had packed it with enough fake provisions to appear full from outside the exhibit, but as soon as you walked past the hanging clothes and stacked boxes, it was just six feet of empty, slightly dusty space. “Stan!” I called softly.

His face appeared in the gap at the back almost instantly, and I yelped in surprise. He laughed and hauled himself up to join me in the wagon. I took a seat on the dusty boards, examining the boxes some docent had used make the wagon look authentic. They were mostly unlabeled wooden boxes, but there were a few with carvings on them, and several ancient cracker tins. Stan sat down next to me, and I automatically shifted closer so I could lean into his shoulder.

“I wouldn’t eat those crackers if I were you,” he said after a minute’s comfortable silence.

“I wasn’t planning on it.” I smiled. “Who do you think you would have been, if you’d lived back then?”

He reached behind his back, made a sound of displeasure, and scooted until he was leaning against the side of the wagon. I followed him, waiting expectantly. “I dunno. If I was born back then, so many things would have been different. I wouldn’t have grown up in a pawn shop running around a beach. And even odds my ma died when I was born, right? They weren’t so good at that back then. I don’t know _what _they’d have done with Ford. He’d either have been president or burned at the stake.” He got briefly lost in thought. I stretched out on the floor, resting my head in his lap and staring up at him. The yellow-green light from this angle wasn’t flattering, but it didn’t matter.

“I’m glad I didn’t live back then,” he said at last. “Not like the life I got was great, either, but every time I see this pioneer crap it just reminds me that things could have been a lot worse.”

“Hm.” I digested that. “I guess you’re right. So much of what we are now is informed by what we were born into, what we grew up with, who our family was. But I still like to think you’d have wound up on the Oregon Trail. You’re not the kind of man to settle for what you’re handed. You’re an explorer, right?”

Stan laughed lightly. “That’s a romantic way of putting it.” He paused. “Thanks.” He paused again. “So what about you?”

I thought it over, too. “I’d probably have been some farmer’s daughter who spent her life working the land and reading the bible in front of the fireplace until she married some neighboring farmer and popped out a bunch of kids.” I stared around the wagon. “Boy, this sure loses the sense of adventure and romance when you think about it realistically. Boo on realism.”

“Couldn’t agree more. Ingenuity is where it’s at.”

We were quiet again for a minute. I was thinking about Stan, putting together little puzzle pieces in my head. Ingenuity was definitely “where it’s at” for a man who had faked his own death to dodge a conman past and essentially build the Mystery Shack from the ground up. (Yes, he’d explained that it was his brother’s house he’d taken over, but he was the one who had turned it into a successful tourist trap). Ingenuity was a good word for a guy who’d spent his youth searching for treasure and his retirement boating in the Atlantic. Regardless of how he viewed it, I was sure that 150 years ago he would have followed the Gold Rush. Probably would have made a fortune, too.

“You’re really brave, you know that?” I asked, giving voice to my thoughts.

“Brave?” He snorted. “How you figure?”

Still lying on my back, I shrugged my shoulders against his legs. “I don’t think I could do most of what you’ve done. And I think I know enough now to know how much of the stories you tell are true. But even if only half of them are…even if I didn’t believe in the incredible weirdness of this town…you picked up your life and moved to another state, changed your name, started over. How many times?”

“That’s not bravery. It’s only brave to leave a place if there’s something there you care about. The one time I did that, it was cause I didn’t have a choice. Not bravery.”

“There’s always a choice,” I quietly disagreed. “It’s just that you only see the ones that are acceptable to you.”

He grunted, digesting that idea. When he spoke again, he turned the subject back on me. “_I _couldn’t have raised a set of kids like you did. I got lucky with Mabel and Dipper. Make an appearance once every year or two, make them laugh when they’re little, offer to take them for a few months in the summer to get them out of the city and use them as free labor at the Shack. Somehow they wound up loving me. It’s not the same as staying put for years, providing stability and making sure they get enough to eat, raising them to believe crap like _be yourself_ and _believe in yourself_. I’d have run he first time a kid needed a midnight feeding.”

I tipped my head sideways, studying him. “No. I don’t think you would have.”

He avoided my gaze. “It’s what I do. Trust me. You’ve only known me a few weeks.”

Almost despite myself, I smiled at that. “Fair enough. But I still don’t think so. You’ve told me about running away from a lot of stuff, but never once mentioned running out on your family. Pretty much the opposite, as far as I can tell.”

He leaned further back into the wagon wall. “You like to see the best in everything, don’t you.”

My mouth quirked upward. “Only to a point. I’m not going to believe you acquired those, uh, _artifacts_ in the Shack by any legitimate means.”

“Oh, but I did.”

“Oh?”

“I legitimately bought a bunch of stuffed animals for a song at a flea market, legitimately hacked them to pieces with a chainsaw I borrowed from the lumberjacks in the middle of the night, and legitimately glued them together with an artist’s precision.”

He was waiting for me to laugh. I did. “Thanks for saying that,” I said when I’d stopped laughing. “About my boys.”

“Thanks for what you said, too,” he said gruffly.

“Hey,” I asked suddenly, “you ever fuck in a museum?”

Stan sat up a little straighter. “No, don’t think I have.”

I grinned. “Wanna?”


	14. Day Thirty-Two of Extended Vacation

The bus pulled up in front of the Mystery Shack. I was on the roof with Soos, trying to help him persuade the troublesome letter “S” to stay in place with a bunch of long nails and a hammer I’d already hit my thumb with once. Soos was letting Stan run the shop while he took care of maintenance this morning, which seemed to suit them both very well. The young man had ideas and was as sweet as the day was long, but he’d started as the handyman and was still pretty good with a hammer. (Pity I wasn’t strong enough to hold up the giant wooden letter by myself, or I’d have been the one holding it instead of whacking myself and swearing. How had Stan ever managed to get this entire sign installed by himself?)

The bus arrival wasn’t usually that much to note, but we were both very aware that Ford Pines was scheduled to arrive on this particular one. The twins were kicking their heels in the gift shop actively waiting for him right now, whereas my kids had conveniently found other places to be for the afternoon. I knew technically that I should be eager for the arrival of Stan’s brother, especially since he was the one who could ensure the firefly I’d accidentally _chewed_ two days ago would be the last one I had to pick out of my teeth. I was excited for that part, certainly. And I was _interested_ to finally meet him.

But I was also nervous, because after a month of dating Stan it turned out I wanted to make a good impression on his family. And also because, well…after a month of dating Stan, I was going to suddenly have to start sharing him with another adult. One that he’d known and loved his entire life, and hadn’t seen in six weeks. I might glow in the dark, but I couldn’t hold a candle to that.

“Hey, there’s the bus!” Soos all but shouted, dropping the S in his excitement. It fell forward immediately, and I barely got my hand up in time to shield myself from a nasty concussion. Even as it was, the sudden dodging I had to do made me lose my balance. I would have fallen right off the roof if Soos’ hand hadn’t shot out quickly to grab my wrist. “Whoa,” he remarked, pulling me back upright, “that fall would have been epic, maybe you shouldn’t be up here?”

“I’m fine!” I snarled, yanking my hand back out of his grip. Immediately, I regretted snapping. “Sorry. Guess it just scared me.”

“You’re fine, dude.” Soos waved off the apology at once. “I almost dropped the S on your head.”

He had me there. I turned, shaking out the hand I’d used to block the S. It had just slid down the roof to crash into the grass. Luckily there were no tourists outside at the moment—we could have killed someone! I sat down on the roof, feeling ill at the thought.

From that position, I wasn’t able to see Stan when he came out of the building to shout at Soos as if he still owned the place, giving him dire warnings about tourist lawsuits before noticing the bus and forgetting all about anything else. The bus was further out, so I still had a clear line of view of that. Stan came into my field of vision, moving at a swift trot, just as a lone figure disembarked the bus. I could make out a tan-colored trench coat, shortish gray hair, and possibly a flash of glasses. He walked with confidence and perfect posture.

He must have seen Stan as he was disembarking, because they headed straight toward each other without hesitation. I sat there and watched as Stan grabbed his twin, pulling him into what looked like an uncomfortably tight hug; Ford paused to straighten his glasses afterward. Then he grabbed the handle of his rolling suitcase, and they walked back toward the Shack together. Within a minute, they were close enough that even from the roof I could _tell_ they were twins. The way they moved was completely different (just as I knew, from hearing them on the phone, that Ford _sounded_ nothing like Stan), and he looked annoyingly fit for an older man, but everything else I could see was like a mirror image.

The other thing that was evident even from a distance was how delighted they were to see each other. It was like that first day I’d seen him greet the twins when they arrived in town, and it was just more proof of what I’d said to him in the museum last week—he’d run from a lot of things, but Stan was always going to be running _to_ his family. I listened, literally eaves dropping, as he and Ford laughed and chatted about the trip from Washington. I crept forward to get a better look. No danger of being seen; they’d forgotten all about me and Soos the second they saw each other. Stan had his hand clapped on Ford’s shoulder as Dipper and Mabel came running out to join the reunion. Soos wasn’t far behind, despite me never having noticed he’d left the roof. There were lots of joyous embraces and excited questions all around. It was beautiful.

I couldn’t go down there.

I had to go down there.

I couldn’t.

I’d known this whole thing was on borrowed time from the start. I was on _vacation_. This was my first little rebound fling as I adjusted to living in a world with no husband and kids who needed me increasingly less. This was...self-therapy, or something. I’d known from day one that it wasn’t something permanent, and that was fine. So why was I now turning into a jealous mess? Over his _brother_, no less?

Because I hadn’t realized until recently how accustomed I’d gotten to a daily routine that revolved around Stan and our four teenagers. Because I’d swallowed a firefly, and had to stay, and it had started to feel more like a second home than vacation. Because when you make the mistake of living as a family unit for a month, you start acting thinking of the people in it as family. And the arrival of that pretty-boy version of my boyfriend was screwing it all up.

I knew that was totally unfair. He’d been here a _long _time before I had. He was Stan and the twins’ _actual _family. He had a _right _to their time and affection. The only reason I’d gotten to know Stan in the first place was because, without Ford or the Mystery Shack, he’d been at a loose end. All I’d done was fill the gap.

If I hadn’t actually cared, maybe it would have been alright. I was only here until Ford made me some pills, right? He had his brother for the rest of their lives, I could have made him share Stan with me for a few weeks. But knowing how Stan felt about him, watching all of them together just now… I didn’t belong in the middle of that. I didn’t want to make anything more difficult or complicated for them. I sure as hell wasn’t going to try to come between them.

And I didn’t know what else to do, so I stayed on the roof. It was cowardly, yes, but I justified it as being polite. Never mind that Soos was down there hanging with them as if he was family; he’d been here with them last summer. I hadn’t. I hid in the shadow of the giant sign and let myself cry for a little bit, mentally kicking myself the whole time. When I’d gotten it all out of my system, I wriggled carefully down the opposite side of the roof onto the platform someone had long ago installed as a secret hangout. I found a spot of sunshine and lay down in it. I didn’t fall asleep, but I relaxed, listening to the sounds of the trees, the wind, families of tourists coming and going…

The spot of sun had moved by the time the sound of a trap door opening intruded on my self-pity. I blinked and sat up in time to see Mabel’s head poking through the doorway. I gave her a lame smile and waved. “I found her!” she shouted back through the door. “Teakettle, what are you _doing _up here? Come meet Grunkle Ford!”

Ugh, and now I had no choice, because she’d just announced to everyone that I was up here. I sighed as I got to my feet, a reaction that was not lost on Mabel. “Uh-oh,” she observed, coming up through the door instead of back down. “Were you hiding?”

I looked away, but there wasn’t really much point in trying to hide it. Forlornly, I looked back at her and nodded. “I figured your family would want some time alone to catch up. I didn’t want to intrude.”

“_Tea_gan!” She rolled her eyes and flopped down next to me. “You _are _family!”

I laughed a little sadly, shaking my head. “I’m really not, kiddo.”

She crossed her arms and stared me down. “Then how come everyone’s looking for you?”

Damn it. I didn’t have a good response to that one. “Are they really?”

Mabel nodded. “At first we thought you were just finishing up some work or in the bathroom or something. When we realized you really weren’t gonna turn up…” Suddenly she eyed me a little too shrewdly. “Grunkle Stan was worried.”

Double damn it. “I was just trying to be inobtrusive. Honest.”

There were sounds from the ladder behind her, and familiar hand appeared through the trap door. A second later, Stan’s head appeared. “_There_ you are! What the heck are you doing up here?”

“I didn’t want to intrude,” I repeated stupidly.

“Well _I _wanted to introduce Poindexter down there to my girlfriend. Come on!”

With no clever way out of it, I followed the two of them back down the ladder and into the Shack. I could hear voices from somewhere in the building, so I assumed Soos was conducting a tour. Stan took my hand immediately, as if sensing my instinct to run, and led me into the kitchen as Mabel ran ahead. We were barely through the doorway when she ran back out. “They’re not there! They must still be looking. I’ll go get them.”

“So, what?” Stan demanded when it registered that we were briefly alone. “You’re scared of Ford now?”

Biting my lower lip, I shook my head. “Not scared. I just, well, you know. Like I said. I didn’t want to intrude.” He looked at me like I was crazy, so I reluctantly added “I saw you from the roof when he got off the bus. I figured you’d want time to catch up. I don’t really understand the twin thing, but I know I don’t belong in the middle of it.”

“You do, do you?” He shook his head in exasperation. “How about next time you don’t understand something, you quit acting like you know the best thing to do.”

I stared at my shoes. “Okay.”

To my surprise, he stepped forward and put his hands on my waist, moving into my personal bubble so that I had to look up. “You don’t want to meet my family, is that it?” he asked it very gently, with an expression that said he thought he already knew the answer. “That make it feel too serious?” My eyes widened, and he removed his hands quickly, holding them up between us. “I get it. It’s fine.”

I was about to call him a fucking idiot for even thinking that, but at that moment Ford walked into the kitchen. “Mabel said you’d found her!” he sounded pleased to discover she’d been right, but immediately sensed something was amiss. I felt his eyes flick back and forth between me and Stan.

“They did,” I agreed, plastering on a smile. “Sorry I kept you all waiting. It’s so nice to meet you in person at last!” I turned from Stan, extending a hand to his twin.

“Likewise,” he responded politely, wrapping six fingers around my hand in a formal shake. Even in the current awkward mood, I found the extra digit kind of cool. “Stanley’s talked about you a great deal.”

I ducked my head shyly. “I could say the same about you.” I fished around my mind for something else to say. “How was your trip?”

He smiled. “One of the more mundane I’ve experienced.”

I lifted one brow. “Is that a good thing?”

He was still smiling, and though restrained he seemed genuine. “I’m not really sure. I haven’t spent much of my life dealing with the mundane. But I did find it relaxing! How are you enjoying Gravity Falls?”

I had to think about that one. “Generally, I like it.” I glanced over my shoulder at Stan, who was now resolutely staring out the window. “I wasn’t crazy about the parts that almost killed me, but your family has really made life here fun.”

“Really?” Naturally, he focused on the negative half of my statement rather than the subtle message I was trying to send to Stan. “How many things have nearly killed you?”

I shoved my hands in my back pockets and laughed nervously. “Just the one, I guess. But that was enough for me.”

“Hm. It’s amazing you’ve lasted as long as you have around my family, then!” I was about to object, but the tiny quirk at the corner of his mouth told me he was joking. “I’m glad Dipper thought of a solution to the problem when I wasn’t available. I apologize for that. But I’m sure you’ve noticed, he’s a bright boy.”

“I’m bright, too,” I said, utterly deadpan.

I’d been hoping it would get a laugh out of Stan, but at least Ford got the joke. “I’m glad you’re coming to terms with the condition. Once we develop some satisfactory treatment, I would love to present your case study in a scientfic journal—unnamed, of course!”

“She’s not your pet science project, genius,” Stan said with a slight edge. “She’s a person. Write about the dumb toads, don’t push her into any boring studies.”

Ford seemed slightly taken aback. “Of course not. I was merely—”

“She and her family extended their trip because you had to finish your big government project,” he plowed ahead. I put a hand on his arm, trying to reassure him, but he barely noticed. “Just get her pills done so they can get back to their home.”

“Stan!” I exclaimed, truly shocked. I slid my hand down from his arm to his hand, tugging until he actually looked at me. “I am in no hurry to leave town! That’s the _opposite _of the reason I was avoiding this. Did it never occur to you that I’m scared because I _want _to make a good impression?”

He stared at me in a way that clearly said no, he had not. Internally, I cringed. This conversation itself was probably sabotaging any chance I might have had of making a good impression on Ford. I flicked my eyes his way and saw him tactfully examining a box of cornflakes as though it were very interesting. Oh well.

I sighed. “We’ve spent enough time together by now that even if I can’t fully get it, I know how important he is to you,” I told Stan, jerking my head to indicate Ford. “You spent half your life trying to get him back in it.”

“You told her that?” Ford interrupted in surprise.

I ignored him. So did Stan. “I’ve gotten used to spending a lot of time with you,” I admitted. “If I try to do that now, it’s time I’d be taking away from _him_. That wouldn’t be fair. So I don’t know how to handle this, but at the same time I’m psyched you actually want me to meet him, which means I do want to make a good impression, but now I’ve utterly blown it.” I turned to Ford, acknowledging that he could hear us, and waved. “Hi, Ford. I’m Teagan. I’m a hot mess most of the time, but I really, really like your brother.”

Ford laughed lightly at that, but it was Stan’s reaction I was watching for. The visible tension in him faded, and his face lit up. “You really nailed that one, sweetheart.” He pulled me up against his side, putting an arm possessively around my waist. “Sorry, Poindexter. Gotta kiss my girlfriend real quick.”

I didn’t get a chance to see his reaction before Stan, undoubtedly showing off, spun me around in his arms and dipped me backward before planting one squarely on my lips. Both laughing and blushing, I stood back up straight—but couldn’t stop looking up at him. “See?” I murmured, pressing a hand to his chest. “This is exactly what I was worried about.”

“About Ford watching us kiss?” he whispered back skeptically.

Ford cleared his throat. “In my years spent studying the paranormal and frankly weird, I can truthfully say I’ve seen stranger things. Though not by much.”

The spell holding me in place broke, and I glanced over at him again with a smile. “It really _is_ nice to meet you. My sons are currently out with some of their friends, but they’re looking forward to meeting you tonight, too. What can I make for dinner?”

“Oh, there’s no need to cook,” Ford tried to protest.

Stan was already shaking his head at him. “Try stopping her! …Actually, don’t. I like her cooking.”

“Damn straight,” I agreed. “Now seriously, where are the tw…Dipper and Mabel? I’m starting to think Dipper fell in the bottomless hole while searching for me!”

“Nah, even money says they’re just eating cookies with Soos’ abuela.”

I nodded, almost certain he was right. “I’ll go look for them. I have something I wanted to tell Mabel anyway.” Unable to resist, I gave Stan one more quick kiss. “You two figure out how soon you want to head back home. Remember, I need groceries.”

“You _always_ need groceries,” Stan returned as I skipped out of the kitchen.

“If you don’t want to come along, you could just let me borrow your car…”

“_No_.” As I walked away in search of the younger Pines, unable to believe how much happier I felt, my ears just caught Stan say to Ford “You remember what you said when I bought that car? Well the joke’s on you!”

I didn’t hear the rest, but I could guess where he was going with it. I smiled.


	15. Day Thirty-Six of Extended Vacation

“Okay, you can wake up now. Stan. Mom. Mom!”

“Yep be right there,” I muttered sleepily, fully intending to get up and help them with whatever they needed. Instead, I promptly fell back asleep.

This time someone was shaking my arm gently. I yawned and stretched groggily, but discovered a very comfortable chest under me and settled my cheek back against it. This was nice. This was comfy.

“Ugh!” I heard Dave’s voice this time. “Just let them sleep there. Whatever.”

“I still can’t believe he tried to _cheat_.” That was…Ford. He sounded scandalized.

“Seriously?” Dipper. Skeptical. Something was tickling my nose. I swiped a hand sleepily at it. “This is Grunkle Stan we’re talking about, and you’re surprised he tried to cheat?”

“Well not on principle, no…but at DD&MD? To what end?” Ford again.

“To win, genius,” Stan mumbled. At the sound of his voice, I automatically snuggled closer.

“Oh look, at least one of them’s awake,” Nicky observed. “Stan, it’s midnight! Everyone’s going to bed, okay? The game’s over.”

“Took you nerds long enough.”

“It’s a great campaign,” Dipper said happily. “When did you have time to plan it out, Grunkle Ford?”

“Oh, I had a few nights when I closed the books a little early. Stanley? Are you coming?”

“Hm? Nah. She’s still out, right?”

“Like a brick. _Mom!_”

“Hmmwhayouokay?” There. Acknowledged. Duty done.

More voices. Doors opening and closing. Maybe a sink? Something tickled my face again, and I tried to brush it away.

It must have been a while later that I woke up with my back screaming at me, because all the lights had been turned off and the house was silent. I rubbed my eyes and tried to stretch out my back. I was still in the living room. I had a vague memory of curling up in Stan’s recliner some time after Ford kicked him out of the DD&MD game for cheating; we’d been playing for hours, I was sleepy, and I’d purposefully gotten my dwarf killed off so I could sit the rest out. I suspected Stan had gotten himself caught cheating for the same reason, honestly.

Besides, even before the game it had been a long day. I’d helped Stan take Dave and Mabel to the pool while Ford took Nicky and Dipper to collect materials from his old bunker. Everyone seemed to have enjoyed themselves. After that we’d stopped by the Shack to do some final planning for the event (aka my grand debut) tomorrow night. When that was all done, we’d come back home in time to hear Dave screeching ecstatically to Mabel that Thompson had actually _kissed_ him in the his car. If I’d been hoping Stan would help me be a mature adult instead of listening in on the conversation, I was sorely mistaken. However, I was playing it very cool around my son and pretending not to know anything while wishing fervently that he’d tell me. And then I’d made dinner before Dipper convinced all of us to join in Ford’s new campaign.

Heck, it had been a busy couple days. Since Ford was eager to get to know me both as a case study and as his brother’s girlfriend, the sharing Stan hadn’t been as hard as I’d anticipated. It helped that he and the kids enjoyed each other, and he spent much of his free time shut up in his room making scientific notes and dissecting the fireflies we’d given him. But I was still adjusting to changes, and getting to know a new person (who I was surprised to find I rather liked) while working to get enough time with all the ones I already cared about.

So of course I’d been tired. But sleeping in a chair—even a recliner—was not doing me any favors. I sat up slowly, trying not to disturb Stan, who was snoring gently beneath me. On second thought, sleeping in the chair probably wasn’t doing _him _any favors, either. I bent over and kissed him on the cheek, moving his shoulder gently. “Stan,” I breathed into his ear. “Come to bed. It’s late.”

“Huh?” He levered himself up slowly, rubbing his face with his palm. “Oh. Teegs.” He yawned expansively. “What’s up?”

I was still sleepy, but awake enough that I kissed him on the lips this time. “We passed out in the chair again. I thought my bed might be a little nicer, unless you want to stagger back to your own.”

“Ha,” he said as he got up. “I have to share it with Ford now. He steals the covers.”

“That is actually adorable,” I told him, fanning another yawn. “Do you guys snuggle, too?”

“That died when we were six,” he told me firmly.

“That’s probably for the best.” I shut the bedroom door behind us once we were both through, and stripped down to my pajamas without a second thought. Stan, who was already essentially _in _his pajamas, dropped his glasses on the bedside table and stole my usual side of the bed while I was changing. I was going to say something, but when I climbed under the covers next to him a surge of adrenaline hit me. We’d been together in plenty of ways and plenty of locations by now, but there was just something special about having him in my own bed, under the covers, at night. But maybe I was the only one affected by it? Experimentally, I moved closer to him until my entire body was pressed against his side, extending a hand over his chest and pressing my parted lips against the corner of his mouth.

He rolled toward me immediately, meeting the kiss and pulling flush against him. Okay, I was _not _the only one. Good. I rolled my hips slowly, trying to see how much I could feel without removing any clothes. I kissed slowly, too, dragging my hands up over his chest and shoulder and sliding my fingers into the hair at the base of his skull. Yes, he liked moving quickly, he favored the excitement. But in bed, at night…slow could be pretty damn exciting, too. I wanted to feel it really build. I wanted that special kind of excruciating.

After kissing my way from one shoulder to the other, inch by inch, while moving my hand over the front of his boxers, I paused to tug off my nightshirt—then on impulse grabbed his right hand and brought it to my mouth. I didn’t know where his hands had been today and at the moment I couldn’t have cared less. I parted my lips just enough to slide his ring finger between them up to the first joint. He made an audible groan, and I moved up to whisper “Shhhhh” directly into his ear before resuming what I was doing.

I really hoped he was enjoying himself. This was incredibly fun.

I sucked on his finger for a long minute, making the experience as intense and filthy as I could; I wanted him to understand that I was going to be doing the exact same thing somewhere else very soon. When I’d exhausted everything sexual I could do to a finger, I placed his hand on my breast and kissed him very deliberately. “This alright?” I asked, still so close that our lips brushed against each other.

“You’re killing me,” he responded as his hands explored my bare chest.

I grinned, glad that my glow ensured he could see it. “I know. But it’s alright?”

Stan nodded.

This time, instead of left to right, I kissed my way gradually downward, submerging myself under the covers until I was crouching between his knees. Tension and excitement were coming off him in nearly-tangible waves, and I could feel myself trembling with the overwhelming force of my desire. I tugged his boxers down, kissing the inside of his thigh. His hands gripped my shoulders, kneading urgently, and I stopped holding back. I moved my mouth down, up, tongue, lips, back of my throat, again, again, it had been so long since I’d done this but it wasn’t something you forgot. I braced my hands against the mattress, my knees slid apart hopefully, and I took in as much as I could.

My mind started to slip around in the throws of desire. I wanted this. I wanted him. Everything, every part, as much as humanly possible. I wanted to make the earth shake for him, and I wanted him to know even a fraction of the depth of what I was feeling, I wanted his fingers to dig into me _harder_, dammit, because this intensity was so strong it shared a border with pain.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I moved back just enough to lift myself and dive forward. He caught me as I settled me weight on top of him, pushing in easily as he pulled me close. His arms tightened around me and I buried my face in his shoulder, fighting to contain the giant wall of sound that was caught in my throat. Static filled my ears and everything was heat and light, tension exploding into beauty that, just for a second, made me believe in a god.

There was no power like this in the universe.

Afterward I remained clinging to him, gasping. He kissed me one more time, rough yet undeniably affectionate. It occurred to me that I might be falling in love, and decided that was something I could live with.

I propped myself up on my palms again, this time looking for the box of tissue I always kept on my bedside table. I stretched out to grab a few before I rolled off. There was a lot to mop up. By the time my thighs felt dry, the adrenaline had worn off and I was yawning again. I tossed the tissue toward the room’s tiny trash can and rolled back toward Stan, ready to pass out on his shoulder. Instead, I found him facing me. He looked half asleep already himself, but that didn’t stop him slipping a hand over my shoulder and pulling my back up against his chest. Aw. I got to be the little spoon. With his arm curled protectively over my chest, I relaxed into sleep.

* * *

Upon waking up, I felt the heat of another body in my bed before I remembered anything about the night before. I wriggled sleepily backward against him, happy without really processing what I was happy about. I would have been perfectly content to stay right there, go back to sleep, and enjoy this a little longer, but my brain unfairly decided it was time to wake up. I knew without having to look or think that it was Stan I was snuggled against, and a warm feeling of contentment washed over me as I processed that fact. Very carnal memories floated back into my waking mind next, and I nearly blushed at the liberties I’d taken the night before. I recalled the game next, and dozing off in the recliner.

Next came the knowledge that today I was going to be a “one night only” special engagement at the Mystery Shack. When I’d initially made the offer Stan had thought I was joking, but it hadn’t taken much to convince him that I genuinely wanted to help the Shack pull in some business while at the same time coming to some sort of terms with life as a human firefly. I didn’t really want to work in a freak show, but it seemed as though this was part of who I was now. It made more sense to own it than to hide it.

Once he’d accepted the reality of the offer, Stan had gotten to work planning out the details with Soos. He might be an inveterate conman, but I’d also seen him work damn hard and show some shrewd business sense; it was no coincidence he’d made the Mystery Shack into a success. Since Soos had planned to do karaoke night sometime in July anyway, it seemed natural to combine the events to pull in a few extra tourists as well as the locals. They’d made up ads and rented supplies and everything. It’d be a real party. Mabel was over the moon, and Dave wasn’t far behind her.

Tickets didn’t go on sale until six, though we’d be spending most of the afternoon preparing. What time was it, anyway? I should roll over the other way and check the clock or my phone, but once I knew then I was sure I’d have to get up. Filtered sunlight filled the room, so it couldn’t be that early—but I didn’t hear anything from outside my bedroom, so it couldn’t be that _late_, either.

Thinking about whether or not Dave and Nicky were awake made me wonder what, if anything, I was going to stay to them about last night. If they woke up first and saw the recliner in the living room was empty, they might automatically make the correct assumption. Or they might just figure Stan had gone back to his bed and I’d gone to mine. Of course, they’d be disabused of that notion when Stan emerged from my room. There was no way around that. If I woke him up right now, we could head to the kitchen and pretend he’d just come over to chat over a cup of coffee, which was well within the normal realm of possibility at this point.

But did I want to do that? When I’d first admitted to myself that I was attracted to him, I’d been so terrified about how dating someone, even just _kissing _someone, might screw up my sons. And yet, if you ignored the occasional gagging sounds they made when something forced them to acknowledge that adults had desires too, they had been impressively mature about the whole thing. I’d even have gone as far as to say they were fond of Stan. So maybe I should just be honest with them, and let them see that he’d slept over. It wasn’t like I had to provide any details. It was the course of action that would let me stay in my nice warm bed listening to Stan’s quiet snoring, which was certainly a point in its favor.

Or would that be pushing my kids’ tolerance just a little too far? Still debating, I turned carefully on my side so that I could watch Stan sleep. It’s one of the great mysteries of the world that when you care about someone, they automatically become beautiful when they smile or sleep. From a technical standpoint, his hair was messy, his mouth was hanging open slightly, and the morning sunlight was making the age lines around his eyes stand out. His ears were too big for his head. His morning breath was terrible. He needed to shave again. None of it mattered, because I wasn’t looking at him as a detached observer. All I could see was how relaxed and peaceful he looked, the way his eyes moved behind the lids now and then, the adorable way he shook his head slightly every time he snored.

Yep. I had it bad. And I couldn’t even regret it, because I was happier this summer than I had been in years. Even if at the end of it I’d go back to Michigan and he’d hop back on a boat with Ford—things I increasingly disliked thinking about—it’d have been worth it. I liked feeling alive again. I liked laughing. I liked becoming part of something.

Reluctantly, I kissed him on the cheek and shoved my legs out from under the covers. Crap. I had never put my nightshirt back on. Definitely a good thing I’d woken up before my kids. I found it, pulled it back on, and tiptoed out to make some coffee. Once it was brewing, I grabbed some clean clothes, made sure the bedroom door was properly closed, and hopped into a nice hot shower.

I took my time in there, probably using up most of the cabin’s meager hot water supply—better warn the boys to wait a little bit before they tried to use it. At any rate, I felt fresh and wonderful when I emerged from the bathroom to pour my coffee. Stan was already sitting at the table with a cup in front of him. Dave was sitting next to him, thumbs moving furiously over his phone screen in between shoving dripping bites of sugared cereal into his mouth.

“Morning,” I said as I filled a mug. “How’d everyone sleep?”

Stan stretched expansively, and I admired the muscles in his shoulders. “Really well. How about you?”

I was completely unable to hide my sunny smile. “Same.”

Dave glanced up from his phone, eyes flicking from me to Stan, then back down. “So did you guys spend the night together then?”

I sat down, holding my mug in both hands. “That depends. Did Thompson kiss you yet?”

He let his phone drop to the table. “_Mom_! That’s…you can’t!” Lucky for him his hair was loose this morning, but even ducking his head and hiding behind it didn’t quite conceal his blush.

I shrugged, trying very hard not to smirk. “It seems like a fair question to me.”

“It’s none of your business!” He was getting screechy.

I shrugged again. “Personal question for a personal question.”

Dave glared. “Which you didn’t even answer.”

Briefly, I glanced at Stan. He gave me a very cheeky grin. Alright then. “Okay, yes. We woke up in the middle of the night and I let him sleep in my room.”

“Did you…no, nope, I don’t want to know!”

Stan laughed at that, and I shot a quelling glance at him across the table. “Are you okay?” I asked, trying to be a good mom.

“I _was_, until you started asking me all these questions!” He picked his phone back up. I’m not sure if he realized how clear an answer his non-answer was.

“How old is Thompson?” I asked carefully. He was old enough to drive, which meant he was older than Dave, and even though he seemed like a kind young man I was ever so slightly concerned for my son.

Of course that was absolutely the wrong thing to say. “We’re a lot closer in age than you two are,” he grumbled. “Stop asking me questions!”

I sighed. “Fine, I won’t pry. I just want you to know that you can tell me things. I might be _happy _for you, you know.”

His eyes flicked up from his phone again. “No, you’d just try to give me the _talk _again.”

I held up my hands in surrender. “I promise I won’t. And you don’t have to give me details. But…you’re happy?”

That did it. He really looked up at me, and I got a look at his sweet, shy smile. “Yeah. I’m happy.” Impulsively, I pulled him into a hug. With the arm not holding his phone, he hugged me back. I’d take it.

Oh, today was going to be a good day. I _liked_ today.

* * *

“Teagan? I’d like to speak with you about something, if I may.”

I turned my head slightly, studying Ford. We were outside the Shack, and he was helping me set up the folding table that would function as a ticket stand. We were alone, and he seemed more wound-up than usual. I was trying to figure out whether whatever he wanted to talk about was as ominous as he’d just made it sound, or if it was just his scholarly way of speaking. Oh well, not like I could really tell him no either way. I finished sliding the last piece of the table into place, and straightened my back. “Sure, what’s up?”

He sat down on the edge of the table, tugging at the collar of his shirt. Crap, he was definitely stressed about something. I felt tension creeping up my own spine in response. This wasn’t the part where he threatened to feed me to a gremloblin if I ever hurt his brother, was it?

Whatever it was, he looked several times as if he was about to speak, then changed his mind about what he was going to say. I sat down next to him, clasping my hands in my lap, and waited. “Does Stanley often spend the night in your cabin?” he managed at last. “Or has that only become a preferable option since my arrival? I know sharing a bed with one’s adult brother is hardly optimal. When I reserved this cabin, you see, I thought it would be just him and the children for the majority of the summer. I know I have a tendency to—”

“Ford,” I interrupted him as gently as I could. “You’re rambling. If you’re asking whether last night was the first time he’s slept over, the answer is yes. But please don’t ask about our sex life. I don’t know if he’d—” I broke off and laughed at myself. “No, he’d want me to brag about it, wouldn’t he? It’s _me _who feels weird discussing it with other people.”

My laughter broke some of Ford’s tension; he smiled and mimed wiping his forehead. “Thank goodness for that. No, I only ask because, well, to be frank…he’s very taken with you. And I find myself in a bit of a predicament. I think you could be the solution.”

Now I was just confused. “What sort of predicament?” And what could _I _possibly do about it?

He nodded to himself, staring off into the distance before looking at me. “When we were boys, Stanley and I always talked about being explorers. Has he told you this?”

It was my turn to nod. “You were going to sail the seas and hunt for treasure. So basically pirates.”

Ford’s eyes widened slightly, then he laughed. “That sounds like his spin on it, yes. Well, as I’m sure you know, it did not go that way. We both made mistakes, I suppose. It was only last summer that things finally got back on track between us, and I freely admit that has been…well, a mixed blessing at times, but I’m delighted to have my brother back in my life. In this past year he has proved himself very resourceful, as well as good company.” He smiled at me, but there was something sad about it. “I love my brother.”

My brow furrowed. “Of course you do! So what’s wrong?”

“I’ve been offered a job,” he said frankly. “A very specialized branch of the government requested my services this spring, and I agreed to aid them at a time when I knew Stanley wanted to be back here with the twins. I thought it worked out perfectly. And in a way, it did—my project was a complete success, and clearly my brother has been enjoying himself in my absence.” 

“But?” I prompted. Much as I was enjoying this backstory and hearing about how important Stan was to him, he needed to get to the point before someone turned up interrupt.

He sighed. “As I said, they’ve offered me a job. One that is far more permanent. It’s an excellent opportunity. They appear to truly value my knowledge and skills, and I’ve had access to data I had previously only dreamed of seeing. I suppose you could say it’s my dream job.”

I understood what he was saying, but the implications were making my mind race and my palms sweat. I needed to focus without jumping to any conclusions. “But if you take the job, then you’re ditching Stan again, is that it?”

Ford nodded bleakly. “I would be given ample vacation time, so I believe I could still spend a few weeks boating with him during the winter and a week or two out here during the summer. But I worry that wouldn’t be enough. That he’d take offense.”

“Have you talked to him about it?” I asked, wiping my sweaty palms on the front of my shorts. “He’s been spending a lot of time this summer helping out Soos around here. I know how happy he was to go on those adventures with you, and he _definitely_ doesn’t want to lose you again. But—and this is just my opinion here, who’s only been around for the summer—I think he’s kind of attached to this place still. If he could work something out so he could run the Shack again, he might be more receptive than you think.”

Some optimism came into his face. “Truly?” I nodded. He hesitated again, then plunged ahead. “And what about you? When I arrived I heard you say you were in no hurry to leave town, and it occurred to me that you might be persuaded to stay on a more permanent basis.”

I stared at him. Yes, this was what I’d thought he might be getting at, but hearing him say it still sent waves of panic and hope through me. “I…I…”

Misinterpreting my reaction, Ford paled. “Of course I wouldn’t want to pressure you into anything. Naturally, you and your sons have a life back in the Midwest. I hope you understand it’s not something I suggest lightly, but…”

I was already shaking my head, slowly and then faster. “No, it’s not that. I’ve been entertaining the idea of staying for months. I mean, I glow in the dark. Even if you made me enough firefly pills to last the whole year, this is the only place I’m ever really going to fit in, isn’t it? And more than that, I like it here. My kids like it here. If you’re asking me whether I’d be willing to stay, in theory, then, the answer is yes.”

Ford read my tone correctly, and warily asked “But you can’t?”

“But,” I corrected him, “I can’t do it for _you_.”

“Ah.” He started to smile. So did I. “I see.”

I nodded. “I’d suggest you tell Stan about your job offer and see what he says.”

“I suppose I’d better,” he agreed, and put a six-fingered hand on my arm. “Thank you. Very much.”

“I haven’t done anything yet,” I objected.

Ford cocked an eyebrow at me skeptically. “Yes, you have,” he told me, and smiled. “Is there anything else you need help with out here?”

“No,” I said, picking up a roll of tape and a sign that read TICKETS. “I think I’ve got this.”

He headed back inside, leaving me feeling as though all the air had been sucked out of me—and also wanting, very badly, to do a victory dance

* * *

“I think that went pretty well.”

I finished putting heels on. Mabel and Dave had insisted on taking me shopping for tonight’s outfits. The first one had been simple and black (if a tad revealing for my taste), made to accentuate my natural glow in a dark room. The one I was changing into now was much more suitable for a party, even if it was still a little out of my comfort zone. “I still don’t see why you had to make _water guns_ available.”

“Aw come on, we went through this already. If they can squirt you with water, it proves you’re not just covered in some kinda body paint. Besides, it’s more fun that way.”

“Fun for _who_?” I demanded, looking in the small bathroom mirror. We were hiding out in the home portion of the Shack while I transformed from “Bioluminessa, the Human Firefly” back into plain old Teagan. I’d brushed my hair out, wearing it in loose waves down my back, but there were still a few damp spots from tourists with poor aim. “For the teenage boys who kept shooting me in the chest despite the fact that no skin was showing there?” I crossed my arms, drumming my fingers on them for affect.

Stan laughed and pulled me to my feet. “You were amazing. Seriously, sweetie. You did great. They were eating it up.”

I continued the upward motion, stretching my hands up until they fit behind his neck. “I admit, it _was_ kind of fun. Did we make any money?”

His hands fit so nicely around my waist. “We? What’s this _we_ you’re on about?”

“Ha ha ha,” I said flatly, rolling my eyes and failing to stop a smile spreading across my face. “So I get _nothing_ in exchange for subjecting myself to spending my night getting gawked at?”

“Well, you’re famous now,” he pointed out. “And I guess I _might_ be persuaded to let you drive my car.”

“Eeeeeeeee!” I squealed in delight like a child, jumping up and down and nearly sliding out of my high heels. Stupid things. They did make me tall enough to kiss him more easily, though. So there was that.

“We should get out there now, right?” I asked, stepping back and smoothing the front of my dress. “I mean, the party can’t start without the original Mr. Mystery, can it?”

“It can if Soos is already out there playing DJ. But yeah, the kids are probably waiting.”

“Probably?” I arched my brows. “You weren’t there when Dave helped me choose this outfit. There is no _probably_ about it.”

Stan looked me over, nodding in approval. “He did a good job, too. Wait’ll you see how crazy Mabel and the girls got with the decorations.”

“I’m sure it’s spectacular. Shall we?” He offered me his arm like a proper gentleman. I laughed and let me escort me into the floor room, a giant space they’d converted into a party area. There were at least fifty people there already, and the decorations were indeed impressive. There were streamers, refreshments, tables, piñatas, colored lights, a dance area, a few games, and the karaoke machine. The last of those was currently being used to excellent effect by my eldest son, who was belting some David Bowie lyrics to a cheering Mabel, Candy, and Grenda.

“Wow,” I breathed, captivated by it all. “This is so much better than my high school prom.”

Stan beamed. “Hey, you wanna be prom queen? Just say the word.”

I made a face. “I’ll pass. But thanks for offering to rig an popularity contest for me. You’re sweet.” I cupped my hands and shouted approval through them as Dave finished his song. “Where’s the rest of the family?”

“Probably outside waiting for Wendy and her crew. Or raising the dead.” He shrugged as if either was not only believable, but acceptable. “Bet Ford’s hiding, though. This isn’t really his scene.”

“Aw, I hope he comes out at least for—”

I was unable to complete the thought, because at that moment we were bombarded by teenagers.

“Teakettle! You look _amazing_!”

“Mom, were you watching the whole time?”

“Did you see me at the exhibit, Mrs. Kettle?”

“Are you going to sing the karaoke, too?”

I drew a deep breath. “Thanks, just caught the ending, no it was dark in there, and absolutely not,” I answered each of them in order. “Also, can any of you help me establish whether or not Nicky and Dipper are currently raising the dead?”

“Psssh.” Mabel blew a raspberry. “They’d never do _that _again. And what do you mean you’re not singing? You _have _to sing!”

I looked to Dave for help, but he’d spotted Thompson coming through the door with another crowd and was already halfway across the room. “No one wants to hear me sing, I’m afraid.”

Mabel and her friends rolled their eyes _in synch_. “Of _course_ they do! You’re the guest of honor!”

This time I turned to Stan, holding onto his arm and looking up at him pleadingly. “Don’t let them make me sing.”

“You think I can stop her?” He seemed amused, though. As if he was perfectly happy to see me humiliate myself. “The kid’s unstoppable,” he added fondly.

I sighed. “Fine. Let’s get it over with before more people arrive to hear it. Oooh! Can we get Nicky to raise the dead after all? As a distraction?”

“You’d better _not_,” Grenda said dangerously, putting her foot down. “I haven’t even had a chance to sing yet!”

“Well you go first,” I told her generously. “I need some punch first, anyway.”

“Oh good,” Mabel said breezily as they ran back to the machine. “That’ll give me time to pick out the _perfect song_ for you and Grunkle Stan!”

Stan’s head snapped around. “Wait, _what_?” 

* * *

“And now presenting the new Gravity Falls power couple—and neither of them can sing to save their lives!” I buried my face in my hands. Stan crossed his arms over his chest. Mabel was utterly undeterred. “Ladies and gentleman, put your hands together—and your earplugs in—for Stan Pines and Teagan Kettle!”

She shoved a microphone into each of our hands and whispered “I found the oldest song I could!”

Feeling sick, I checked the screen. It was _Hooked on a Feeling. _I looked at Stan. He looked back at me. I raised my eyebrows and shook my head. His mouth twisted into something between a grimace and a laugh. I giggled. Seriously, Mabel, this was the best you could do? Oh, this was going to be _so bad_.

I glanced out at the crowd. A lot of them were watching us. “Okay, Mr. Pines,” I muttered, covering the microphone. “Give the people their money’s worth.”

He covered his, too. “No way.”

The intro music had started. “Then do it to make your niece happy.”

“You go first.”

“Nope. Smile for the crowd, honey.”

He surprised me—he actually did it. “I can’t stop this feeling…” Oh my goodness. I tried not to blanche. Oh, it was bad. I might have somehow found the only man in the world who sung as badly as I did.

Feeling bad for making him go first, I took over at the next stanza, the one that led with “when you hold me in your arms so tight.” Now that I’d started, the only really difficult part was not laughing. Stan’s expression almost made the whole thing worth it. I nodded to him, my grin pinched with repressed giggles, indicating he needed to join me on the chorus.

The second we made it through those lines I lost it, ducking my head into my shoulder and laughing silently until my eyes watered as Stan got stuck with the next verse. The line “lips as sweet as candy” sung to me in his gravelly baritone just made me laugh that much harder. I was getting a stitch in my side. Ow. Ow ow ow.

The next verse was mine, but the ball of laughter caught in my throat was making it really hard to sing. I managed to get through “I’ve got it bad” and subbed in the word “sir” in place of “girl” since, while I might call Stan a lot of things,_ girl_ was not one of them. Somehow, doing that calmed me down enough to actually sing. It was still _bad_, yes, but I could do it if I focused on Stan instead of the audience. We could suffer through it as a team. For the kids.

He started the next verse, but I stole the second and fourth lines of it so that we went back and forth. I might have been imagining it, since the music was pretty loud, but I could have sworn I heard Mabel loudly whispering “It’s like they’re _made_ for each other!”

One of the good things about that song was that it was short. I was just starting to enjoy myself, opening up and singing terrible, sappy lyrics about being in love as loudly and badly as I wanted to, and then it was ending. I was having fun with it, damn it! Well, no, that wasn’t entirely true. I was having fun with _him_, and that wasn’t anything new.

We got more laughter than applause, but at least it was a reaction. Someone in the crowd shouted “Encore!” and I shouted back “Are you crazy?” That got more laughter. I was about to step off the stage and recover from the exhilarating embarrassment, but Stan grabbed my hand and pulled me back, sweeping me into a deep romantic kiss. I let my foot pop.

_That_, stunningly, got cheered.

* * *

Everything after that was pretty easy. Stan moved around the party talking to people and occasionally trying to sell them things; for most of the night I stayed with him, sipping punch and getting properly introduced to more locals. There were over a hundred people here, and Dave told me that his friend Tambry had already posted several videos featuring me. It looked like the days of anonymity, or even getting only a polite nod from someone who’d seen me around town, were over. Everyone knew my name now. Everyone knew I was the “crazy human firefly lady.” Everyone knew I couldn’t sing. And everyone knew I was Stan Pines’ girlfriend.

Yet that didn’t seem like such a bad thing. On the contrary, it made me feel…welcomed. I wasn’t just a tourist anymore. This weird little town had accepted me as one of their own. I sat by the karaoke machine, taking pictures on my phone as Nicky hammed up a hilariously girly song with Dipper and Wendy. My heart melted when I spotted Dave and Thompson doing stupid poses together in the photo booth. I laughed when several parents I knew joined the teenagers in trying to destroy a piñata. I cheered when Soos switched the focus from the karaoke machine to the dance floor by turning on the music and doing The Worm right in front of everyone. I smiled till my face hurt when Mabel and her girlfriends started dancing to a rap song.

I felt like I belonged here.

And then when Soos dimmed the main lights so that sparkling rainbow dots swirled around the floor instead, I got to watch Nicky ask Candy if she’d dance with him and fumble awkwardly with how to go about it when she said yes. A slow song started up, and they weren’t alone out there anymore. I saw Thompson’s parents dancing together—along with Soos and Melody, and Dipper and Wendy, Tambry and Robbie, Dave and Thompson, Mabel and Ford, an old man dancing alone with a woodpecker on his shoulder…it really was beautiful. The young couples, the awkward pairings, the old married couples, the friends laughing as they moved to the music… Magic. That was a better word for it. Magic.

I was so caught up in watching everyone else that I didn’t notice Stan until he leaned over my shoulder and said “Wanna dance?”

I jumped, barely contained a shriek, and felt my knees go weak. I turned toward him, using his solid frame to hold myself upright until the shock passed. “Don’t _do _that!”

“Sorry,” he laughed. “No, really. Sorry. But do you?”

It took a second to remember what he was even asking, but I got there in the end. “You know I can’t dance.”

“You said you can’t sing, either.”

“And I was proved emphatically _right_.” I smiled up at him, recovering quickly. “But I guess, if it’s only doing what all of them are doing…yeah, alright. I can stand in one spot and rotate in a circle. For you.”

“Better not be for anyone else,” he teased, leading me out to the middle of the dance floor. He rested his hands at my waist, and I draped my wrists around the back of his neck, standing right against him.

I’d almost forgotten, somehow, that the slow-moving rainbow disco lights were_ not_ the only light on the dance floor. I saw my glow all around Stan’s face, and when I glanced at the floor I could see the circle of yellow-green light stretching out several feet around us. People, I realized, were watching us. The effect must have been pretty spectacular: weird and enchanting and ethereal. Good grief, we really _might_ be the power couple of Gravity Falls.

“Stan?” I said, resting my head on his shoulder as we swayed. “How would you feel if I said I wanted to stay here?”

“I’d say you’d lost your mind,” he responded without hesitation. “But hey, your choice, crazy-lady.”

I smiled. That was a pretty good answer, in all honesty. The song ended, but whoever was currently playing DJ started up another slow dance. A few couples separated, and I saw Mabel pulling Nicky into a dance before he could leave the floor, but most people just kept dancing. I was pretty happy to stay where I was, as long as it was in Stan’s arms.

“Is it cause of Puppy Love over there?” he asked me, jerking his head in the direction of Dave. He was still dancing with Thompson, and though I noticed they weren’t dancing quite as _close_ as Stan and I were, the look on his face was pure rapture. Aw, my boy had it bad. I was scared for him, but moreover I was happy for him

“No,” I answered Stan after watching them dance for a few seconds. “High school relationships are adorable, but they’re not something I’d gamble on, either.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Stan agreed. We moved silently for a minute, probably both thinking about our own disastrous high school relationships.

“Why would you say I’m crazy, then?” I asked after a while.

He shrugged, but held me closer. “Just thought you might get sick of this place after a while. You stay here a few more months, you might decide it’s not that great. Maybe you’d get bored.”

“_Bored_?” I repeated, nearly laughing. “I could never get bored with you.”

He turned his head, clearing his throat. “Thought we were talking about the _town_, Teegs.”

I raised my eyebrows skeptically at him, and he actually _blushed_. “I can’t imagine getting bored with the town, either.”

“That’s…that’s alright then,” he mumbled sheepishly.

I stifled a yawn. Standing mostly still with my head resting on his shoulder was reminding me that today had been a very long, very busy day. “I might, however, get_ sleepy_ with the town,” I added, letting my eyes drift shut for a moment.

Stan pulled his hand away from my waist to glance at his watch. “I can’t get away for at least another hour. Bet Ford would drive you home, though.”

I yawned again as the song ended. “I’ll see if I can stick it out a little longer.” A faster song started up, and I hurriedly abandoned the dance floor. My kids were still enjoying themselves; it wouldn’t be just Stan I was ditching if I crashed early. Speaking of going to bed, though…

“I heard it’s supposed to be chilly tonight,” I told Stan with a straight face as I grabbed a bottle of water from the refreshment table. “You should really sleep somewhere that doesn’t have a history of blanket shortages.”

He grinned. “You know, that’s a pretty good idea.”


	16. Day Forty-Two of Life in Gravity Falls

Mabel sailed into my living room, Waddles trotting happily at her heels. Further behind, I heard Dipper or Ford carefully shutting the front door. “Morning!” I said loudly enough to greet both of them at once, as well as alert Nicky to the presence of friends. Dave was already sitting next to Stan and I on the arm of the sofa, leaning over to see the listings we were viewing on my laptop. I’d hardly broken the thing out the whole time we’d been here, but now that I was house hunting it proved a little more necessary.

“Oooh, whatcha looking at?” she asked, taking a seat next to her uncle. Dipper raised a hand in greeting and disappeared into the boys’ bedroom in search of Nicky. Ford also entered the room. He’d abandoned his trench coat today thanks to the heat, but was stubbornly wearing his favorite turtleneck already—not like my Stan, who’d barely gotten dressed at all yet. I smiled and nodded to him, and he returned the greeting.

“How haunted do you think that one looks?” Dave asked Mabel, pointing to the screen. The house that I was currently considering _was _old, and the basement looked like a death trap even from the real estate photos—but it was also had four bedrooms, two baths, and a price tag I could stomach.

“Totally haunted,” she agreed with enthusiasm. “Grunkle Ford! Look at this! What do you think?”

Ford leaned politely over the computer until he was almost upside-down, and shook his head slightly. “Possibly a category two or three ghost. Nothing you couldn’t handle, I’m sure.”

“Dip-dip could totally exorcise them anyway,” Mabel said cheerfully. She had a giant lollipop in her hand, and shoved it back into her mouth. “Does it have room for all of us?”

Stan laughed nervously. “Cool it, kid.” She rolled her eyes, but dropped the issue.

“Oh, before I forget!” exclaimed Ford, standing upright again. He reached into a pocket and produced a small, stoppered glass bottle. “A six-month month supply. Given everyone is sitting so close to you, I take it the prototype did its job.” He passed the bottle to me. Several dozen little brown pills chinked inside it.

“You realized six months only gets her through January, right, genius?” Stan took the bottle from me, examining its contents with interest.

Ford sighed. “Yes, Stanley, I can do basic math. We’ve been through this. I will have another twenty pills finished next week. The distilling process takes time, and it took a great deal of fireflies to make enough.”

“Don’t forget to make some for Mrs. Starsparkle, too!” Mabel reminded him.

“I don’t think a toad’s going to eat a pill,” Dave objected doubtfully. “Maybe it’s time to set her free. She’s been in mourning for a while now. Let her go find a new Mr. Starsparkle.”

Mabel blew a raspberry at him. “He wouldn’t take _her_ last name, stupid!”

Dave laughed. “You realize they’re _toads_.”

She jumped back up. “Wanna go take her out to the woods right now?”

He got to his feet, too. “Sure, why not.”

“Ooh, and then we can get the….” She dropped her voice, moving closer and whispering whatever it was into his ear. He nodded eagerly, and they took off.

“What was that about?” Ford asked, taking Mabel’s vacated spot next to Stan.

“Toads, I think?” I laughed. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Thanks for taking care of my girl for me,” Stan told him, passing the bottle of pills back to me. “I owe you one.”

Ford smiled. “Well, she’s going to be taking care of _you _for _me_. I think it’s fair.” Then, abruptly, he fixed me with a death stare. “Of course, that’s assuming you hold up your end of the bargain. If you break my brother’s heart, I’ll let you die.”

My jaw dropped, but I also started laughing almost immediately. (_Hopefully _he was making a joke!) “That is _stone cold_,” I told him thought my laughter, underscoring the sentiment with a slow clap.

Ford crossed his arms over his chest and cocked an eyebrow at me, as if amused that I wasn’t taking him seriously.

Stan elbowed him hard in the ribs. “I can look out for myself, you know!”

His twin turned the amused look onto him instead. “Yes, that’s why you’ve spent years of your life in prison. I’m _hoping _Teagan can keep you out of trouble.”

I dropped my jaw again, this time pretending to be offended. “I would _never_ do something so cruel! Keep him out of _jail…_” I studied Stan very seriously, tipping my head side to side and rubbing my chin. “Well, I’ll do my best. But keep him out of _trouble_? Never.”

Grinning, Stan gestured proudly at me with his thumb. “Yep, this is the one.”

I winked at him, and went back to looking at real estate. Mabel hadn’t been that far off when she’d asked if the place was big enough for all of us. If I wanted to pull off this move before school started—or at least be far enough on the path that I could safely enroll the kids—I needed to do it as a single woman. Just because Stan hadn’t slept in his own cabin in a week didn’t mean I was ready to jump into anything more complicated. The fact that we were maybe keeping this going past the end of August was more than enough for now; if Mabel thought she was getting a great-aunt out of the summer she was going to be disappointed. On the other hand, we weren’t ruling _out _any long-term possibilities, either. I was keeping an eye out for homes that could house a few extra people for the summer, just in case.

Sadly, most of the ones that fit that requirement _did_ look pretty haunted. Maybe I’d get Dipper and Ford to train Nicky up on exorcisms before they left next month.

As I poked through photos on the website, I half-listened to Ford filling Stan in on the DD&MD game we’d missed out on last night. To be honest, I thought Stan was just as happy to have missed out, but he was choosing his battles. I could hear Nicky and Dipper playing some sort of video game in the bedroom, despite the fact that Nicky hadn’t even emerged for a shower or breakfast yet. Grenda’s mom Clara had offered to help me with my resume over a plate of cookies this afternoon. Soos and Melody were joining us for dinner again tonight, and now I thought about it, Wendy might have said she was coming, too. So I’d have to go shopping. Stan and Ford were taking the kids out on the lake while I ran errands.

I’d finished making notes of the houses I wanted to tour and gone back to perusing job ads when Dave and Mabel returned through the front door. Mabel had a book clutched to her chest, a sight that was usually more familiar on her brother. Her uncles looked up, too.

“Whatcha got there?” Stan asked with interested. She grinned excitedly and bounced toward us, stopping directly in front of him and presenting the book with great flourish.

It was a scrapbook. “It’s not done yet,” she explained as we examined the front cover. “But I—_we_—wanted to show you now.”

Last night had been the big revelation, where the kids were concerned. Ford had informed them he’d accepted a job offer working on some highly classified scientific studies out east, though he had put it off until the start of September so he could be around for the twins’ birthday. While they were still reeling from that, Stan had broken the news that he’d talked with Soos and come to the conclusion that while he might not be the owner anymore, there was still a year-round place for him at the Mystery Shack. And then I’d announced that, pending Dave and Nicky’s approval of course, I wanted to look into moving here permanently. There had been _so _many questions for all of us that I was frankly amazed anyone had had enough energy left over for games.

Or, apparently, for creating scrapbooks. This one had the names _Teagan_ and _Stan_ on the front in a design that looked suspiciously like a wedding album. There were also little stickers of pine trees and teakettles all over. Cute. Potentially very cringy—I was afraid to open it for fear of what sort of idealistic nonsense I might find—but cute.

“Did you do this all last night?” Stan asked, looking away from the cover and back up at the kids.

“Of course not, silly!” Mabel sat down in front of us, cupping her chin in her hands and watching avidly for our reactions. “I’ve been working on it for _ages_. We all have!”

My head jerked up as I looked at Dave. “Really?”

He nodded, looking a little nervous. “Mom…we like seeing you happy. It’s easier for _me _to be happy when _you’re_ happy. I thought you knew that.”

“I…should have, love. I’m so sorry.” I took a steadying breath. “I like seeing _you_ happy, too. That’s half the reason we’re staying here.”

Dave looked embarrassed. “Yeah, I know. Look at it already, okay?”

“So, what, this is like the kids’ stamp of approval?” Stan asked, flipping the book open. As soon as we got a look at the first page, we both stopped talking. There was a picture of the cabins, from the road. A picture of me bringing dinner to the table, my head turned to the side as I answered a question someone was asking…I didn’t even remember anyone taking that. One Dave must have snapped surreptitiously on our first fishing trip, right as I’d splashed Stan the second or third time. Another one I hadn’t realized they’d been taken, of the two of us passed out together in the recliner. A ticket stub from when we’d all played miniature golf.

Stan kept turning pages, both of us captivated. More pictures—some very natural, taken by sneaky children, and some that we’d actually posed for. There was the night we’d all gone out to the diner to celebrate my close call with death. Stan had his arm around Mabel’s shoulder, not mine, but you could see our hands touching on the table. A picture of a quick kiss we’d shared in the car while we were waiting for the kids—those little spying creeps! One of the selfies I’d taken of the two of us on Summerween. One from last week, at the karaoke machine. There was another one from that night, a really beautiful one of us dressed up, dancing, and shining in the center of the floor. Some other less flattering ones, and plenty that included at least a few of the kids. One terrible picture of us trying to help bathe Waddles.

I was choked up when we made it to the first empty page. “There’s lots of room left,” said Dipper softly. When had he and Nicky even come out of the bedroom? I hadn’t noticed.

Stan cleared his throat and closed the book. “You knuckleheads are way too nosey. Who asked you to get all up in our business?”

Nicky and Dave exchanged worried looks, but Mabel flung her arms sideways around her uncle. “We love you, too, Grunkle Stan!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” His smile had leaked through the gruff exterior. “Get in here,” he told Dipper, pulling him into the hug as well. He looked over their heads at my boys. “What are you two waiting for? I said get in here.”

Even with the broad shoulders, he wasn’t wide enough to hug four kids at once. But that was alright. I was there to help. “I can’t believe you did all that!” I half-scolded, half-praised them. “It’s _amazing_! I thought I was going to cry.”

“I told you I’m a great matchmaker,” Mabel crowed.

“There’s no way you can take credit for this!” Nicky countered her.

“Technically, if anyone deserves the credit,” said Ford, escaping the group embrace and straightening his glasses, “it’s me. I’m the one who reserved the cabin for you, after all.”

“Unless you’ve got some special powers besides being the world’s biggest nerd, you don’t get credit either,” Stan shut him down playfully. “No one gets credit except me and Teegs.”

I kissed him on his scruffy cheek. “Actually, there _is _a certain individual who deserves a little of the credit. Someone who’s waiting for us outside right now.”

I got collectively stared at. I laughed, and opened my left palm to display a very familiar car key, holding it up and as far from my boyfriend as I could.

There was a moment where Stan’s face was fairly luminescent with surprise and pride. Then he smirked and reached over me, grabbing for them.

I ducked toward him rather than away, sliding over his knees and rolling quickly (if not elegantly) to the floor. “Ha!” I cried over my shoulder, pausing only to stick my tongue out triumphantly at him, and bolted for the front door.

I could hear laughter behind me, but Stan’s footsteps were closer. He’d almost certainly catch me before I made it to the Diablo. And one of these days, I’d try again. Maybe someday, I’d even pull it off. In the meantime…

Well, I’d always wanted him to catch me.


End file.
